Compared to what Konami made in the six-month period ending September 30th, 2008, it appears that the company has taken a tremendous blow for the same period this year.

The Japanese publisher has released a forecast which predicts a profit drop of 82 percent, though revenue as a while will only be down by 22.5 percent (JPY 114 billion/USD 1.26 billion), which is still nothing to sneeze at. Meanwhile, net income will drop from last year's JPY 12 billion (USD 132.8 million) to JPY 2.2 billion (USD 24.3 million).

Of course, the cause is obvious, when you think about it. Last year, they had Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. This year... well, nothing quite so grand, as their major releases slated for the second half of the fiscal year.

According to their financial statement, "Even though the figures for the consolidated business performance for the six months ended September 30, 2009 were approximate to the projected ones in all segments, net revenues and profits of the consolidated interim results are expected to decrease when compared with the figures corresponding to September 30, 2008, mainly due to factors such as the fact that main titles released by our Digital Entertainment segment for the current fiscal year were not scheduled to be released until the second half of the year while in the same period last year major titles, in particular, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, had already been released."

Today, Konami's share price was down by 1.9 percent as JPY 1641 (USD 18.16) when the market closed.