Japanese game maker Sega Corp slashed its full-year net profit estimate by 72 percent on Thursday on slack software sales, casting a shadow over its plan to become the world's leading game software publisher.
Sega, which ditched its loss-making Dreamcast game console operations last year, forecast its group net profit for the year to next March at five billion yen ($41.11 million), cutting its previous estimate of 18 billion yen.
The revised figure, although better than the loss of 17.83 billion yen scored a year ago, sent its shares down by their daily limit of 300 yen to close at a 22-month low of 1,212 yen.
Sega, creator of the "Sonic the Hedgehog" game, said the revision was due largely to poor U.S. sales of "Sega Sports NFL 2K3", an American football simulation game released in August.
It also blamed the delay and cancellation of some game titles originally expected to be launched by the end of March.
News source: Reuters
