The company lost $66 million, while it posted a profit of $14 million during the same period last year, so it’s quite a decline, mostly attributed to lack of decent titles during the period. The company still expects sales to reach $94 million this year, fueled by Tekken 6, of which 2.5 million copies have already been shipped.

If you didn’t know, Tekken 6 made its way onto store shelves shelves on October 27th in North America and October 30th in Europe. But already Namco Bandai is announcing that they have shipped 2.5 million copies of the game.

Of course, this doesn’t exactly showcase the game’s success as these numbers focus on units shipped, not units actually sold. We’ll have to wait until the title has been available for at least a week before we see those numbers.

Anyone planning on picking up Tekken 6 if you haven’t done so already?

via joystiq

Namco Bandai has today let us know that the video game based on Clash of the Titans is in fact going to make its way onto North American shelves.

Exactly when, we aren’t sure but the developer has said that sometime in spring of next year the title will be made available for purchase for both the Xbox 360 and PS3. Namco Bandai hypes up the game a bit by saying they, “promise an unprecedented experience for video game and movie fans alike.”

via kotaku

The game features a total of 30 levels, some new and some are ports from older games.

No official release for Europe is planned, although it’s expected to be released in September. The game was released in Japan back in July for the PlayStation 3.

The story of the game will go up to the end of the Sasuke rescue arc. Sixty playable characters and twenty-four maps will be featured in the game. For any fans who have issues with the English dub, a  Japanese audio will be included. The game is currently under localization by CyberConnect 2.

Namco Bandai Partners has confirmed that Ghostbusters will be released for the Xbox 360, PC, Wii and Nintendo DS on October 23rd.

If you want a good idea of how the game will be, be sure to check out our review of the US version of the game.

Read (VideoGamer)

“Tekken 6 and TapouT fans share a deep-rooted passion for the mixed-martial-arts lifestyle,” said Namco Bandai’s Makoto Iwai “This partnership will bring TapouT’s signature style into the world of Tekken, giving new experiences to video game enthusiasts and MMA fans alike.”

Hopefully these shirts won’t look as awful as Ecko’s Halo shirts. The new clothing line will go on sale this September.

Read (PlayStation Lifestyle)

While this is a Japan only announcement it will definitely give American PS3 owners a ray of hope — It was recently announced that Japanese PS3 gamers will be getting a demo of Tales of Vesperia on July 13th.

For those of you Xbox 360 gamers sitting there scratching your head, yes, this is the same Tales of Vesperia that was released for your console on September 17th.

Hey, at least the PS3 is catching up, right?

Read (Kotaku)

Tekken and Street Fighter could arguably be considered two of the most successful fighting game franchises of all time so it would make sense for the two developing companies to hate eachother, right? Wrong, Tekken’s series director Katsuhiro Harada recently told VideoGamer the exact opposite:

“I’ve been a fan of Street Fighter in general, and I was kind of sad to see it die out in the arcades. So I was very happy to see it make a comeback – especially with that new look it returned with while staying true to the original formula. I believe a lot of fans were very happy with that.”

Not only is he the director of the highly anticipated Tekken 6, but he’s also a fan of Street Fighter? It’s nice to see two competing developers live in harmony.

Namco Bandai’s Tekken 6 is due out for the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 on October 27th of this year.

It’s been a fighting game tradition to leave a characters as unlockables for some time now. However, according to Katsuhiro Harada, Tekken’s series director, this tradition is “outdated”.

He explained his reasong by saying that unlockables first came to be back in the arcade days when developers wanted to get people to play for longer thus increasing the game’s longevity.

I agree with Mr. Harada considering the first time I played Street Fighter IV online and got destroyed by Akuma’s Ultra Combo, I was none too pleased that I couldn’t return the favor next match.

Tekken 6 will be available with all 40 of its characters for the PS3 and Xbox 360 on October 27th of this year.

Read (videogamer)

Formally owned by Atari, Dragon Ball has returned to it’s original publisher, Namco Bandai. This is unfortunate for Atari especially considering their current financial situation.

Bandai says that they will have exclusive rights to the Dragon Ball license 5 years beginning in January 2010. Additionally, they will publish the upcoming titles, Dragon Ball: Revenge of King Piccolo, Dragon Ball Z: Attack of the Saiyans and Dragon Ball: Raging Blast.

Does Atari losing one of it’s biggest franchises mark the end for the aging company? I guess we’ll find out.

If you missed out on a chance to get your hands on one of the Street Fight IV FightSticks, and are planning on picking up Tekken 6 you should check out the recently unveiled wireless fight sticks (pictured above). These are the same fight sticks we mentioned in a previous post earlier today, so dont’ be confused.

Shown above is the official Tekken 6 Wireless Fight Stick bundle which includes the game, the controller and an art book. For those who care, the stick was made by HORI, not MadCatz.

Finally, the bundle will be made available for the Xbox 360 and PS3 and cost $150 for both. The different between the two, however, is that the Xbox 360 version is white and the PS3 version is black.

Read (Joystiq)

In addition, Namco Bandai announced two pre order incentives. Those who buy the game bundled with the new fight stick controller, can get a wireless version of the controller if they pre-order. The fight stick bundle includes the controller, the game and an art book, and will be released on the Xbox 360 and PS3 for $150.

The second pre order deal is available at GameStop only, and gives those who pre order a free downloadable Penny Arcade “samurai pack”, which we mentioned here.

In The Munchables, you’re part of a race of fuzzy little critters that inhabits the planet Star Ving, in which said critters do nothing but eat on a series of peaceful islands interconnected by rainbows.  You may wonder how critters that do nothing but eat can actually survive in their ecosystem–that’s thanks to the Legendary Orbs, gigantic stone structures that vaguely resemble…pudding?  I think that’s pudding.  But I’m terrified that it might be something much, much more disgusting.  Anyway, the Legendary Orbs generate a nonstop supply of food for the critters on the islands, and all is high-calorie heaven until a race of aliens shows up and steals the Legendary Orbs so that they too can become superpowerful monstrousities. All would be lost until one of the critters notices that, hey…these aliens, these “space pirates” as they’re called…look an awful lot like food.  And so, in what may be the single lowest point in interstellar diplomacy since Douglas Adams’ microscopic space fleet was inadvertently swallowed by a small dog, the Star Vingians proceed to eat their invaders.

And that is where you come in.  You’ll steer one of two Star Vingians around, eating anything that even vaguely looks edible and occasionally jumping.  If you find a food monster that is bigger than your mouth (you can tell by noting the “level” of both your character and the character you’re about to chow down on) you’ll have to attack it first to break it into smallish, bite-sized pieces.  Attacking boss characters is slightly more complex than this, however, and requires attacking weak points that will be clearly labelled for you.

As you grow in level, you’ll also PHYSICALLY grow–picture Katamari Damacy in which you don’t push the Katamari, but rather, you ARE the Katamari.  The control scheme is very simple, requiring the nunchuk to move your character around and a couple buttons on the Wiimote to perform the rest of your functions.  It’s also a fairly fun title.  Chowing down on the various enemies and swelling in size is an admittedly visceral thrill, but sometimes, the fun gets a little…strange.  See, at the end of every round, all that food you’ve eaten has to go somewhere…and where it goes…well, this is actually really creepy.  Your character will execute a one hundred eighty degree turn, visibly strain, and…spew a pile of sparkly multicolored orbs from its lower rear quadrant DIRECTLY onto an elderly onion.  Who will in turn seem very happy about this development, and assign you a letter grade based on how deep a pile of sparkly orbs you’ve landed him in.

I thought it was some kind of weird caffeine hallucination the first time I saw it, but then sure enough, the next round I’m burying an elderly onion in a pile of spherical dookie all over again.  And he’s happy about it.

This aside, The Munchables is a surprisingly fun title with some decent humor, graphics and gameplay.  it may not be a great long-term value but in the short term it almost certainly won’t disappoint.  A terrific rental, and possibly even a good buy, The Munchables is plenty tasty.

The latest portable fighting game for the Soul series is shaping up to look really good so far. Besides the addition of Dampierre and Kratos to the roster, Soul Calibur: Broken Destiny mainly borrows Soul Calibur IV’s elements, ultimately becoming a portable version of the game. Nonetheless, it looks exciting to play as the protagonist of God of War.

Broken Destiny will be hitting stores on September 30th for the PlayStation Portable.

It was recently announced that Namco Bandia will be releasing a localized version of MagnaCarta 2. RPG fans will recognize the title as a follow up to the popular MagnaCarta: Tears of Blood that was released in 2005 for the PS2.

MagnaCarta 2 will be released exclusively for the Xbox 360, run on the Unreal 3 engine and feature 40+ hours of gameplay.

Joystiq is reporting that Softmax, developer of the previous title, will return with Hyung-Tae Kim, Korean artist, providing character designs for MagnaCarta 2.

No release date has been announced but you can view the above trailer to hold you over until we get wind of one.

Namco Bandai has revealed that for the first time you’ll be able to take the epic battles of Soul Calibur with you wherever you go on your PSP. Fully titled Soul Calibur: Broken Destiny the handheld game will feature many of the existing characters as well as some brand new ones, including one named Dampierre. Namco says that although all of the existing gameplay elements from the console version are being brought to the small screen they’re attempting to create a mode that’ll help to teach new players the ins and outs of the series’ fighting system.

The classic Arcade, Story and Survival modes are all included and thus far multiplayer is confirmed for Ad-Hoc wireless, but not for internet wireless. The game is due out this summer.

Katsuhiro Harada, the director of Tekken 6, had some interesting things to say about bringing a Tekken game to the Wii in an interview with GamePro. When asked if Tekken 5 or Tekken 6 would be heading to the Wii any time soon, he said, “That would be very interesting. Like the Xbox 360 owners, if Wii owners are passionate and make it known they really want the series on their system, we would love to be able to answer that request.”

There has been a serious lack of quality fighting games for the Wii as compared to the other consoles. In fact, the only Tekken game that has been released for any Nintendo system at all is for the Gameboy Advance. “Hearing about the huge number of Xbox 360 owners who are Tekken fans, especially in North America, definitely played a huge part in influencing us to bring the game to that system,” the director said.

So, it’s pretty much up to the fans to voice their opinion about why there’s no Tekken for the Wii yet. For any naysayers about the controls of the said system, Harada had to say, “…the standard controller lacks the right number of buttons and the placement is awkward, so… I suppose the classic controller could handle it!”

Tekken 6 will be heading to the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on October 27th.

BottleRocket Entertainment was abruptly dismissed from the project last month, with Namco Bandai defending the move by saying that there was a “performance issue” with the developer.

The studio hit back, defending its performance record while accusing Namco’s mismanagement.

Here’s what they had to say:

Game development contracts are put in place to protect the publisher and their interests. Within these contracts are a series of defined game development objectives and goals called milestones. If a developer is under performing they tend to fail these milestones and have varying degrees of accountability placed upon them. Splatterhouse had been in development for over eighteen months and up to having the title taken away from us we had not missed any contractually defined milestones. So either there were no performance issues during that timeframe or Namco’s management of the title was inept.

"We are in the midst of making Pac-Man come back because his 30th anniversary is in 2010 actually," said Namco Bandai Games America EVP Makoto Iwai. "As a group, we feel like we should do something to make him come back. So, there’s one project that we started working on, and [Yasuhara is] part of it."

Iwai mentioned that the company’s internal development team was split into several groups following the release of Afro Samurai. One of those divisions was tasked with the Pac-man game and is being led by Yasuhara.