Dark Souls (a game I have been wanting to play for some time now) pushed Namco Bandai to its strongest fiscal year since 2008, the publisher revealed today in its financial results for the year ended March 31.

This action role-playing game was the company’s top game of the year selling 1.19 million copies in North America and Europe.  After the game’s launch it was reported to have shipped 1.5 million copies worldwide.  It lit up retailers, with North America leading shipment numbers at 620 000 units and Europe at 470 000 units.  These numbers represent total shipments across the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3.

Other successful games for Namco Bandai were Ace Combat: Assault Horizon, One Piece: Pirate Warriors, Tales of Xillia, Dragon Ball Z: Ultimate Tenkaichi & Soulcalibur V.

Because Namco has forecast sales and profits will both suffer single-dgit percentage drops for this fiscal year ending March 31 2013, they have announced a lineup of titles for the year presening different versions of their top selling games, including Dark Souls for the PC, the international release of One Piece: Pirate Warriors, the sci-fi first-person shooter Inversion, Tekken Tag Tournament 2, and Dragon Ball Z for Kinect.

Source: GameSpot