Via Joystiq a bit of good news for SEGA fans, and even better news for SEGA parent company Sega Sammy Holdings. Sega Sammy revealed their financial results for the fiscal year ending March 31st, 2013, making note of a net profit of ¥33.5 billion ($331 million), an annual growth of 53.3 percent. However, Sega Sammy’s operating profit decreased year-on-year by 67.3 percent, down to ¥19.1 billion ($189 million). A large part of the net profit was through the sales of “investment securities” and transfers of employees’ pension benefits. Fun stuff.
Sega Sammy made note of a decreased demand for packaged games, and that the company has to adapt towards games on social networks and mobile devices. Don’t freak out, as the packaged games that SEGA has released have been quite successful. Aliens: Colonial Marines, despite all the bad press and low review scores, shipped 1.31 million units. Sonic & All Stars Racing Transformed shipped 1.36 million units. SEGAbits reader, and tipster ROJM notes that Sonic & All Stars Racing Transformed just might be the most succesful non-Mario related spin-off Sonic game in the third party Sega era. Football Manager 2013 is noted as selling just under 1 million, however Sports Interactive’s Miles Jacobson has recently tweeted that the title has since passed the 1 million mark. Yakuza 5 shipped 590,000 units. It should be noted that as a result of SEGA’s lessening of packaged games that the total number of packaged shipments saw a decline (down 10.8 million overall), but the decline makes sense and was surely expected.
The biggest success, gaming-wise, is Phantasy Star Online 2, with a subscription base of over 2.5 million on the the PC and Vita. As the game is free-to-play, this large number isn’t exactly a gauge for how much the game made in sales, but the company says in-game purchases have “exceeded forecasted levels.” So, the game is exceeding expectations. It’ll be interesting to see how these numbers change once PSO2 releases to the West. As for the future of SEGA, the company forecasts 11 games on PC, 7 on Wii U, 7 on PS3, 6 on 3DS, 5 on Vita, 4 on Xbox 360, and 2 on PSP in the fiscal year ending March 31 2014. The company estimates a 41 percent growth in net profit for the next fiscal year, up to ¥47 billion, or $464 million.
Update: SEGA’s future game forecast is SKU numbers, not game numbers. So say for example, the new Sonic game comes out on 3DS, that counts as one SKU for each region, so that would leave 3 SKU’s for 3DS, one of the other 3DS SKU’s is probably japan exclusive hatsune miku, so that leaves 2 3DS SKU left. Digital games aren’t taken into account for SEGA’s SKU forecast.
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you should point out that their future game forecast is SKU numbers, not game numbers, also it only is for physical games.
so.. the next Sonic game would count as 3 SKU’s per system, considering it releases in all regions, so that would leave 4 SKU’s left
so, sounds on par with their plans, not many boxed games, lots of digital games.
Also worth noting, Bayonetta 2 is published by Nintendo. So that wouldn’t appear on this list.
2 on PSP? Hmm, sounds like a Japanese PSP game may be coming west.
doubt it. probably 2 PSP japanese exclusive games!
I would be more interested to see how much digital offerings such as ‘The Cave’, Sonic Dash and services like GOD and PSN are bringing in for SEGA. Their digital releases have been very strong lately.
Didn’t sonic colors and generations each sell just under 2 million copies? How would Sega Racing Transformed be the most successful non mario sonic property in this context?
Outside the main series of games, spin-offs only. Sorry, failed to note that. Implied it with the mention of the Mario & Sonic titles.
ah, right sorry!
I was under the impression that their digital games (besides PSO2) somewhat under-performed. I wonder how many copies were sold of games like Hell Yeah and The Cave.
For a company so focused on digital, SEGA seems surprisingly hesitant to talk about it.
11 games on PC, 7 on Wii U, 7 on PS3, 6 on 3DS, 5 on Vita, 4 on Xbox 360, and 2 on PSP
what does my good company have planned