Namco Ltd., a developer of home video games and arcade game machines, said Thursday it posted record group pretax and net profits in fiscal 2004 on strong domestic sales of video game titles and a range of one-off gains.

In its last consolidated earnings report prior to a Sept. 29 merger with toy maker Bandai Co., Namco said pretax profit for the year that ended March 31 came to 14.59 billion yen, up 1.1 percent, with net profit at 9.46 billion yen, up 25.4 percent.

Namco, which created the classic arcade game Pacman and also runs theme parks and amusement facilities in Japan, the United States and Europe, said its revenue for the year rose 3.5 percent to 178.55 billion yen.

Namco attributed the net profit upsurge to a range of one-time gains, including 319 million yen in proceeds from sales of securities and 515 million yen in fixed property sale proceeds.

It also said it did not have to book an appraisal loss on its fixed property holdings, unlike the previous year, when it incurred a 747 million yen loss by writing down such holdings.

But the company saw net profit per share dive to 83.63 yen from the previous year's 133.00 yen.

It attributed the dive to a 2-for-1 stock split it carried out last Nov. 19. The split bolstered the number of outstanding shares to 109.76 million yen.

Namco and Bandai will set up a joint holding company, NamcoBandai Holdings Inc., in September to survive intense competition in the toy and video game market in Japan, which faces a falling number of children.

The combined company will be Japan's third-largest listed firm among toy and game content makers in terms of sales after Nintendo Co. and Sega Sammy Holdings Inc.