{"id":27202,"date":"2024-02-14T18:22:51","date_gmt":"2024-02-14T09:22:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/?p=27202"},"modified":"2024-02-15T18:06:21","modified_gmt":"2024-02-15T09:06:21","slug":"20240214-27202","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/20240214-27202\/","title":{"rendered":"Bandai Namco disappointed with performance\u00a0of “new online game” (meaning Blue Protocol)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On February 14, Bandai Namco Holdings <\/strong>released their 9-month Financial Report for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2024. The company reports 772,035 million yen in net sales (3.9% year-on-year increase) and 60,398 million yen in final profits (a 28.5% year-on-year decrease). Bandai Namco also mentions that the new online game title released in this period fell short of forecasts \u2013 likely referring to Blue Protocol (via GameBiz<\/a>). 

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nhttps:\/\/youtu.be\/tQPAWiVrfYA?feature=shared\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Blue Protocol is a free-to-play MMO released by Bandai Namco Holdings in June 2023 for the PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X\u2758S. The game is currently Japan-exclusive, but has releases by Amazon Games planned for North and South America, Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the period leading up to its release, Blue Protocol was highly anticipated by Japanese users, and after going through several delays, it had a successful launch, immediately gathering over 600,000 players<\/a>. For a time, Blue Protocol was the fastest growing title in the history of Bandai Namco\u2019s online game business, and this popularity was likely due to the fact that it was a rare instance of a made-in-Japan MMORPG, with the added factor of anime-style graphics and a big company backing the project. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

But what happened to Blue Protocol? The hype around the game died down quite rapidly, as Japanese users started pointing out issues such as insufficient content updates, long-term negligence towards serious bugs, bad balancing decisions and overall lack of engaging features. Compared to initial figures, the number of players dwindled significantly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It seems that this contributed to Blue Protocol significantly underperforming in terms of Bandai Namco\u2019s financial forecasts. With overseas releases for the game planned for 2024, it remains to be seen what measures Bandai Namco will take to appeal to players.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bandai Namco Holdings released their 9-month Financial Report for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2024, which mentions a new online game falling short of forecasts. This likely refers to the MMO Blue Protocol.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":27205,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-27202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-japan-related-news"],"blocksy_meta":[],"yoast_head":"\nBandai Namco disappointed with performance\u00a0of "new online game" (meaning Blue Protocol) - AUTOMATON WEST<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Bandai Namco Holdings released their 9-month Financial Report for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2024, which mentions a "new online game" falling short of forecasts. 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