Last week, a number of Japanese hardware and software makers released sales and profit figures for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1997. The following figures show Konami to be ahead of the pack: It reported a 136 percent increase in profits on sales that increased 28 percent. Square was the surprise laggard with its report of an almost 75 percent drop in profits compared with last year. All figures, as reported by Asahi Newspaper, are in US currency.

　　Sega reported parent company sales of $3.1 billion, a 4 percent increase over the previous year, and a parent company profit of $287 million, a 5.2 percent increase over the year before.

　　Bandai reported sales of $850 million, a 6.4 percent decrease from the previous year, and a profit of $74 million, a 15.4 percent decrease from the year before.

　　Nintendo reported sales of $2.9 billion, a 15 percent increase over the previous year, and a profit of $869.7 million, a 13.7 percent decrease from the year before.

　　Namco reported sales of $869.7 million, a 17.9 percent increase over the previous year, and a profit of $96.4 million, a 32.5 percent increase over the year before.

　　Taito reported sales of $598 million, a 7.2 percent decrease from the previous year, and a profit of $8.6 million, the same as the year before.

　　Konami reported sales of $475 million, a 28 percent increase over the previous year, and a profit of $65.4 million, a 135.9 percent increase over the year before.

　　Enix reported sales of $195 million, a 37.8 percent decrease from the previous year, and a profit of $50 million, down 42.2 percent from the year before.

　　Square reported sales of $181.5 million, a 25 percent decrease from the previous year, and a profit of $17.2 million, a whopping 74.6 percent decrease from the year before.

　　And Koei reported sales of $95.5 million, a 9.7 percent decrease from the previous year, and a profit of $27.5 million, a 20.5 percent decrease from the year before.