February 4th, 2009

Rich And Poor Gap

The rich and poor gap can be a quite interesting subject, especially when talking about gaming companies. Why gaming companies? You weren't expecting a story about the rich and poor people of the World, weren't you? That would be rather depressing, and pointless, because we, the little pawns, we can't really change anything(as long as you're not Bill Gates...but he's already doing A LOT to help those in need), so Disney vs Koei sounds much better, don't you agree?
Rich and Poor Gap

As Panasonic is firing no less than 15,000 people(about 5% of its workforce), Japanese publisher Koei is showing us record sales numbers - JPY 163 million (USD 1.83m) up, to JPY 20.1 billion (USD 225.2m) for the period ended December 31, and an operating profit of JPY 4.5 billion (USD 50.4m), an increase of JPY 968 million (USD 10.85m), when comparing these new numbers to the ones from the same period of 2007!

On the other hand, Disney revealed a year-on-year loss of no less than USD 45 million for its Interactive Media division, formed by Disney Interactive Studios(the gaming branch) and Disney Online, the provider of online services such as web design and MMOs. According to Robert Iger, Disney's president and CEO, "We faced a challenging first quarter with many of our businesses impacted to various degrees by the economic downturn. We are forcefully confronting current circumstance while investing in the great creativity, brands and assets that are Disney's strengths and keys to its long-term success."

Anyway, the above doesn't really mean Disney is going down, since the overall revenues went down 8 percent, to a value of USD 9.5 billion, while net income dropped 32 percent, to USD 845 million. Well, as long as we're talking about positive numbers, they should be happy with it and do what we all should do - try to work harder and come up with better products than the competition.