Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth ships 250,000 in Japan

With 250,000 copies shipped in under a month, Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth was a bright light in an otherwise quiet quarter for Sega Sammy, games-wise. It's a solid start for Atlus' 3DS RPG, which should have appeal to both Persona and Etrian Odyssey fans.

For comparison, Etrian Odyssey 4 shifted 150,000 copies in roughly its first three months on sale in Japan, while Vita entry Persona 4 Golden shipped 700,000 worldwide by the end of 2013. Persona Q is still to come to the West, with releases penned in for North America and Europe on November 25 and 28.

Back on Sega Sammy, the company's consumer division did see net sales increase year-on-year by 13.3 percent, chiefly due to downloadable games like Phantasy Star Online 2 and smartphone titles like Puyo Puyo Quest and Chain Chronicle. However, with no major new releases, packaged software sales dipped by 12 percent. Overall, higher advertising costs pushed the division into the red with a 282 million yen operating loss ($2.74 million.)

As a whole, Sega Sammy posted a Q1 net profit of 5.5 billion yen ($53.4 million), down 57.4 percent year-on-year. With Japan's economy still laboring, Sega saw its Pachinko business, a major contributor to the company, suffer particularly with a 31 percent drop in operating profit. The company maintained its forecast of a 7 billion net loss ($68 million) for the six months ending in September 2014.

[Image: Sega]