Phantasy Star Online 2 doing well despite Sega's weak profits

[ROJM]

There’s good news and bad news from Sega. The good news is that Phantasy Star Online 2 is doing well and that earnings from the game are exceeding expectations.

 

Earlier in the month, Sega announced that Phantasy Star Online 2 has over 1 million registered IDs in Japan and that they would be doing a special giveaway in order to celebrate. The game is planned for western release in 2013.

 

Now for the bad news. Pachislot and Pachinko business is weak in Japan, and this has caused Sega to revise their forecast for the first half (April – September) of their ongoing fiscal year.

 

Sales of Pachislot machines for the April – September period were expected to be 179,000 units, but Sega have revised this number downward to 108,000 units. Meanwhile, the forecast for Pachinko machines has been revised downward from 103,000 units to 57,000 units.

 

As a result, while Sega originally expected profits of 3.5 billion yen ($44.4 million) for their April – September period, they have now revised this to 2 billion yen ($25.4 million).

 

For reference, Sega’s profits during the same period in their previous fiscal year were 3.98 billion yen ($50.5 million). Phantasy Star Online 2′s strong performance was not enough to make up for the drop in the Pachislot and Pachinko business.

 

However, Sega point out, profit margins on Pachinko and Pachislot machines will increase due to cost improvement measures centred around the re-use of components.

http://www.siliconera.com/2012/10/15/sega-profits-down-but-phantasy-star-online-2-exceeding-expectations/

Well its not all bad..one title doing well.....

[SEGA_Portuguese]

There are actually only good news for SEGA. This news from Siliconera is one of the worst crap i have ever seen in my life.

If you look what SS wrote, they said that PSO2 is better than they expected and they are also praising "strong sales in software package", probably the Miku game and other stuff.

The problem was Sammy not selling too many Pachinko and this is good, because other moments, you had SEGA losing money and Sammy saving the day, now is the other way around.

Aki said that this is the first time in years that they praise the software division of SEGA.

This dude from Siliconera is anti-SEGA. I used to visit Siliconera and i already saw him salty against SEGA in other news. He wrote on his twitter that "Well, SEGA is almost dead anyway", another day. Look the comments section, i called him out about this and he is salty, he can't explain.

The only site i saw publishing this and using Siliconera as base was...Go Nintendo, lol.

[ROJM]

There are actually only good news for SEGA. This news from Siliconera is one of the worst crap i have ever seen in my life.

If you look what SS wrote, they said that PSO2 is better than they expected and they are also praising "strong sales in software package", probably the Miku game and other stuff.

The problem was Sammy not selling too many Pachinko and this is good, because other moments, you had SEGA losing money and Sammy saving the day, now is the other way around.

Aki said that this is the first time in years that they praise the software division of SEGA.

This dude from Siliconera is anti-SEGA. I used to visit Siliconera and i already saw him salty against SEGA in other news. He wrote on his twitter that "Well, SEGA is almost dead anyway", another day. Look the comments section, i called him out about this and he is salty, he can't explain.

The only site i saw publishing this and using Siliconera as base was...Go Nintendo, lol.

Not up to date about the reporters with that website but considering it is the sammy side but it does affect them since they are now one company.

[CrazyT]

Good to hear about the game doing well. Hope the game can grow and head towards a much better direction eventually. I've been voicing about this over at PSO World. Alot of mechanics in PSO2 right now are in conflict with themselves which becomes only more apparent the more you play. Some things feel like a mess and unfinished but sometimes it's almost like they are intentional. I dunno but I hope to be proven wrong.

PSO has a healthy base within japan but to win people over in the west when the english release comes out, I am afraid the playerbase may be similar to previous PS online games in the end. Of course the fact it being F2p is gonna attract alot of people, but they may lose interest eventually as well.

[ROJM]

Well that game Sega publish and still running SPIRAL KNIGHTS managed to get over three million users and KINGDOM CONQUEST has about over two million users now, PSO to me should have attributed the user base its pedigree deserved. but 1 million from the period its been available is VERY good especially if its in japan, no westward bound.

[Randroid]

There are many internet "news" outlets that have a 'fuck sega, hope they die' attitude.

It's annoying when it can be picked up on the subtext of an article that you hope to gain objective facts from.

And is it just me or is Sega the only publisher that seems to get this treatment. SMH, never understood that attitude. I wouldn't wish death to any game publisher whether I support their games or not.

Bitching aside, this is great news. It's refreshing to hear that the Sega games division is the one leading the profits. Can't wait till they bring PSO2 over to the west. The only MMO I can stand to play. 

 

[Barry the Nomad]

I think people have this childish attitude because they feel like SEGA betrayed them when they left the console market. It's like "Oh, you don't want to make me consoles anymore and you still want me to buy your games? Fuck you!"

It's stupid and petty, but I'm pretty sure thats the reasoning.

[semmie]

I think people have this childish attitude because they feel like SEGA betrayed them when they left the console market. It's like "Oh, you don't want to make me consoles anymore and you still want me to buy your games? Fuck you!"

It's stupid and petty, but I'm pretty sure thats the reasoning.

we love sega regardless. but yeah it is reasoning. everyone of us would be happy with a console no?

[SEGA_Portuguese]

I also think that a lot of hate that SEGA receives is because people don't wanna understand that SEGA is a business company and some games, no matter how much awesome they are, don't deserve a sequel, from the business stand point. For example, i love Binary Domain, one of my favorite SEGA games ever, but there is not gonna be BD 2 and i can't blame SEGA.

There is a dude i saw on twitter saying that, SEGA could do a partnership with PEPSI to help Shenmue 3, using  pepsi inside of Shenmue (on the machines you can find on streets). Really, does someone here really believe that PEPSI is interested in this lol?

 

[Randroid]

I think people have this childish attitude because they feel like SEGA betrayed them when they left the console market. It's like "Oh, you don't want to make me consoles anymore and you still want me to buy your games? Fuck you!"

It's stupid and petty, but I'm pretty sure thats the reasoning.

I always personally thought it was runoff from the nintendo/sega rivalry. There was a lot of emotion back in those days, but then I think to myself that kids from that time (like myself) are much older now and are not that petty.

I seriously don't know. It could be what you're suggesting. Maybe it's that sega is SO japanese in it's gaming style that it becomes the center of hate for the current anti-japanese gaming philosophy here in the west. 

But back to what you suggested. Hating a company because they couldn't make consoles anymore, fuck me, that's a dumb way to think.

Even when I watch reviews for the add-ons and niche systems sega was putting out in the 90s, how can you not get excited? New ways to play. Who cares if they're logical market-wise? Sega CD, 32x, Nomad, Neptune. The more the merrier. Just their existence is awesome and inspiring to me. But people bash them to no end and laugh. Ah well. Again SMH. Born in the wrong country. Japan appreciates sega much more.

[Barry the Nomad]

I guess I got the feeling of people hating SEGA because they left the console market since I often see things like "SEGA died with the Dreamcast" and "SEGA was once great".

I agree that their strength diminished after losing the ability to release to their own platform, but I don't think that is a good reason to hate on them now. Like, yes the Dreamcast era was jam packed with first party games that pushed the envelope, and if you compare the past three years of 2010-2012 to 1998-2000 the amount of games may have diminished. But there are still some really great games from the past three years, some of which I'd say are BETTER than some games of the Dreamcast era. Like Rhythm Thief beats Space Channel 5 in terms of gameplay variety, Bayonetta (while not internally developed) is an amazing game, the All-Stars titles totally beat stuff like Sonic Shuffle, Generations and Colors are better games than SA1&2.

But since now is "less great" than then, now must be shit. It's stupid thinking that I see applied to a lot of things nowadays. Nobody is content with "great but not as great as the glory days".

[Radrappy]

Not to mention we have plenty of people who never liked sega in the first place happy to tear into their heritage via re-releases. 

I'm glad to hear that PSO2 is doing well.  It's not the greatest game ever made but you can really tell Sakai and co are doing their best to fix that.  I wish nothing but the best for the franchise and hope its met with some affection when it comes stateside. 

I honestly wish that someone else would snap Sega up from Sammy.  It's sad to see their fate so deeply intwined with the pachinko business of all things.   

[Kori-Maru]

@Sega_P
They've done that with Fighting Vipers with the likes of Pepsiman!
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=autrrmHH3TU[/youtube]

[ROJM]

Not to mention we have plenty of people who never liked sega in the first place happy to tear into their heritage via re-releases. 

I'm glad to hear that PSO2 is doing well.  It's not the greatest game ever made but you can really tell Sakai and co are doing their best to fix that.  I wish nothing but the best for the franchise and hope its met with some affection when it comes stateside. 

I honestly wish that someone else would snap Sega up from Sammy.  It's sad to see their fate so deeply intwined with the pachinko business of all things.   

It was the panchinko side of things that's responsible for half of the things most people are/were enjoying from Sega right now including that whole Sonic racing thing and the whole Platinum deal. Anyway the two companies are interwined now so you cant really seperate them like you could before.