Before their September 29th tie-up, Bandai and Namco today talked business strategy at a press conference in Tokyo. Following the establishment of Bandai Namco Holdings, executives plan to create one subsidiary uniting all game development activities in April 2006 as well as another holding company in the United States. The former will be called Bandai Namco Games and unite 60 Bandai and 1300 Namco developers under one roof. The new company's presence in the United States will be known as Bandai Namco Holdings USA. It will be established in January 2006 and unite the current six American Bandai and Namco subsidiaries.

For the current fiscal year ending on March 31st 2006, Bandai Namco Holdings is projecting consolidated sales of 475 billion yen ($4.31 billion US) and an operating profit of 44.2 billion yen ($400.94 million US). Bandai Namco will be Japan's second largest third party publisher, trailing only Sega Sammy in terms of sales.

• Nikkei Net