Perfect World Posts 118 Million Yuan Loss in H1 — Even With Hit Game’s 2 Billion Yuan in Sales, Ad Spending Drags It Down

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Perfect World, the Chinese gaming giant behind titles like NTE, has announced a loss of 118 million yuan for the first half of 2026. While worldwide cumulative revenue from its flagship title topped 2 billion yuan, a 213% year-over-year surge in marketing spending is being blamed for pushing the company into the red.

On the thread, comments included “It’s ranked 8th on the PlayStation Store and still posted a loss?” and “Maybe they just spent too much on ads.” Discussion also turned to how differently sales break down between the PS5 version and the PC/Android versions.

China’s Perfect World falls to a 118 million yuan loss in H1 — Yihuan’s (the Chinese title of NTE) 2 billion yuan in sales couldn’t offset a 213% jump in marketing spend

Source: finance.biggo.jp / original article here

4Anonymous2026/08/20(木) 17:42:56.68ID:UWYb9zTx0
Huh, surprisingly not that profitable?
Didn't it rake in something like 30 billion (yuan) at the start?
7Anonymous2026/08/20(木) 17:45:33.52ID:mNBqplI40
>>4
Apparently they spent too much on ads.
10Anonymous2026/08/20(木) 17:46:57.57ID:2OlMaiCu0
>>7
So that includes the stealth-marketing (paid promotion disguised as organic hype) push before launch too?
Mugendai (another Chinese gacha title) is pretty bad about that too.
16Anonymous2026/08/20(木) 17:49:25.03ID:o16GqcSP0
>>10
Calling everything 'stealth marketing' is so cringe.
11Anonymous2026/08/20(木) 17:47:14.45ID:3py/eX8z0
But this is ranked pretty high on the PS5 sales charts and still isn't profitable?
Is the PS5 just… not selling?
62Anonymous2026/08/20(木) 18:17:04.86ID:f2YNRXkfd
>>11
Sales are great, but marketing costs put it in the red.
74Anonymous2026/08/20(木) 18:24:10.23ID:DkfKwsz4d
>>11
It only looks decent relative to a dying village (5ch slang for the PS5's shrinking market) — on trash-station (a mocking nickname for PlayStation) that's nothing special.
Most people are fine playing on their phones; nobody's going out of their way to fire up a giant oversized 'smartphone' [i.e. the PS5] just for this.
15Anonymous2026/08/20(木) 17:49:22.22ID:61DR0GlV0
Doesn't Narushio (fan nickname for Wuthering Waves) ever post a loss? Three years in and its concurrent-player number of 1.7 (unit unclear in the original post) is basically Priconne-tier (as in Princess Connect Re:Dive — shorthand for 'past its prime').
17Anonymous2026/08/20(木) 17:50:19.10ID:hFaOWt6o0
>>15
That's probably some sloppily-counted concurrent number anyway.
35Anonymous2026/08/20(木) 17:59:28.38ID:cLJ+0Kj50
>>15
Unlike NTE, it's actually doing well in China.
20Anonymous2026/08/20(木) 17:51:36.52ID:GatQq7nb0
If you're gonna criticize it, at least check the current PS Store rankings first, yeah?
1. Genshin Impact
2. Apex Legends
3. eFootball
4. Zenless Zone Zero
5. Gundam
6. Fortnite
7. Wuthering Waves
8. NTE
9. Endfield
10. Overwatch
27Anonymous2026/08/20(木) 17:56:11.25ID:m9ta+Vzf0
>>20
8th place and still a loss, huh.
Yep, trash-station strikes again.
33Anonymous2026/08/20(木) 17:58:32.68ID:+R2MjFPnr
>>20
There was an update and it only moved from 11th to 8th, so that's barely a rebound…
Judging by the trend, most people have already quit.
Feels like folks uninstalled NTE and reinstalled Genshin Impact instead.
There was a wave of 'it's Snezhnaya now, guess I'll come back' [Genshin's newest region, a big draw for returning players].
Given that kind of movement, it seems like most PS users haven't expanded their storage and are just juggling games on the built-in drive.
71City Boy ◆Tokyo/ax2s2026/08/20(木) 18:22:41.01ID:GQY4Bcm20
>>20
That might be true on PS, but across the whole market Fortnite has passed eFootball and is way out in front at #1.
The Gaming Legends season kicks off today too.
24Anonymous2026/08/20(木) 17:55:53.98ID:dVH2pJ1S0
The Sony fanboys (ゴキ, literally 'roaches' — a derogatory nickname for PlayStation loyalists on this board) kept saying PS5 was selling like crazy domestically, but…
34Anonymous2026/08/20(木) 17:58:45.47ID:xHQlegaU0
>>24
Even if it sold well, there's only 7 million PS5 owners in Japan at the most generous estimate — that's nothing to work with.
This is a game built around a 1.3-billion-person market [China].
38Anonymous2026/08/20(木) 18:01:11.84ID:dVH2pJ1S0
Every time I check, Endfield is completely outside the sales charts — averaging below 200th place. It's dead.
129Anonymous2026/08/20(木) 19:19:09.29ID:Ro5ysLSN0
>>38
Well, that's a game meant to be played on PC.
It's on PS5 too, but apparently you can't even use keyboard and mouse there.
50Anonymous2026/08/20(木) 18:07:46.94ID:dVH2pJ1S0
PC and Android make up 60%

According to Perfect World Games' official H1 2026 earnings released August 19, NTE's worldwide cumulative revenue — over 1.4 billion yuan as of June 30 — passed 2 billion yuan as of August 18. Official PC plus official Android together account for roughly 60% of the total.
53Anonymous2026/08/20(木) 18:08:39.48ID:61DR0GlV0
>>50
Do you even need the PS5 version?
99Anonymous2026/08/20(木) 18:36:44.07ID:1hGkhA7e0
>>50
There's zero benefit to paying through PlayStation — they leak your personal info all the time, and there's no points or anything either.
59Anonymous2026/08/20(木) 18:14:44.63ID:zXkY+GCxd
>>1
NTE launched late on Steam and is already #2 in sales today — it was #1 yesterday.
67Anonymous2026/08/20(木) 18:21:06.74ID:j210spR00
Wasn't this the game the mobile-gacha crowd used as a stick to beat Japanese games with?
72Anonymous2026/08/20(木) 18:23:13.31ID:OssrW0c50
>>67
That's basically all I remember about it.
Actually, the only people I remember playing it were the diehards (the original Japanese word here is ambiguous, possibly a typo for a harsher slang term mocking obsessive players).
Even if I saw it in a YouTube ad, it's just the same reskinned garbage game as everything else, so it doesn't stick in my memory.
79Anonymous2026/08/20(木) 18:26:26.52ID:Az64zRFq0
Spending too much on ads just means their PR team is dumb.
81Anonymous2026/08/20(木) 18:27:31.17ID:Jj8Y3SZ70
>>79
Well, the plan was probably to blitz ads, reel in a ton of easy marks as players, and cash in big…
152Anonymous2026/08/20(木) 20:11:48.71ID:oewy3gDl0
>>79
That's just how China does things across the board.
They can only compete on scale.

*This article is compiled from excerpts and a summary of the 5ch (Hardware/Industry board, aka “Geha” — short for the console-war-focused game hardware forum) thread “NTE operator Perfect World falls into the red.”

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