Citing "present conditions that include the current severe business climate and declining profitability", Namco Bandai will implement a ““group restart plan” that will lead to the loss of around 630 staff.

“Since the management integration, the Bandai Namco Group has focused on bolstering its Group foundations through organizational restructuring and other efforts to achieve fusion as a new group as quickly as possible," the company said in a statement today.

"While the consolidation of administrative tasks and other streamlining and cost-cutting efforts at key companies have yielded some results, the Group lost speed on the operational side. We determined that our inability to fully deliver products and services that responded flexibly to the changing market environment and user preferences led to declining profitability.

“As a part of reviewing the optimum number of personnel in each business, through the use of solicitations for voluntary retirement at Namco Bandai Games Inc. and the existing voluntary early retirement programs at other companies, we expect that by the end of FY2011.3, the number of employees, currently about 7000, will be decreased by about 630, equivalent to about 10% of the Group-wide workforce."

The company expects the workforce reduction to reduce personnel expenditure in the next fiscal year by approximately 3.5 billion yen (£24.25m).