SEGA Networks released a new report showing the strong growth in their mobile division and lays out future plans. The report came with a host of interesting facts, from animes being produced to possibly a future MMO in production. Hit the break to find a host of a interesting information including updated figures on their NOAH Pass service which they launched in August 2013.
SEGA Networks seems to be enjoying a healthy array of highly successful titles but the major ones from last year’s report, Puyo Quest and Chain Chronicle, continue to enjoy the bulk of the revenue. People may recall but Chain Chronicle had generated over $73 million for SEGA and if it continues to generate 500 million yen a month, it’s almost certain that the title has brought in $100 million for the division. Similarly, Puyo Puyo Quest should be hovering around the same sort of figure. It goes to underline that even if you fail multiple times on mobile, one break out success can cover for all the game’s that weren’t successful. Despite this, the above image illustrates how the group has more hits than failures. The division is expected to generate 31.4 billion yen, up 10.5 billion yen from last year (Actually already above last year with the first 3 quarters.)
Other major information to be noted is the development of 20 new mobile titles with 15 coming from in-house studios (10 from SEGA Networks and 5 from SEGA) with a further 5 being co-developed/published. Eagle eyed forum member Ryan posted a comprehensive list over at our forums but we can already start marking out some of these future titles;
- Total War Kingdoms / In-House / SEGA/The Creative Assembly
- Xuccess Heaven / Co-developed with Namco
- Hortensia Saga / In-House / SEGA Networks
- Chaos Dragon / In-House / SEGA Networks
- Dragon Parade / In-House / SEGA Networks
It’s interesting to note if this is going to include MOBA titles too, as that would mean Total War: Arena would be one of the other in-house SEGA titles. What’s interesting to note is SEGA specifically points out that a newly invested studio, Ignited Artists, is being “comprised of experienced PC online/home video game developers”. I wonder if that hints at a MMO rather than a mobile title? In which case the scope of SEGA Networks opens up massively.
SEGA has also seem more willing to invest in anime tie-ins for their mobile games, as some of you are aware Chain Chronicle is getting an anime adaptation. This report also confirms that Ange Vierge will be getting it’s own anime as well, along with Xuccess Heaven which is being developed as a multimedia franchise. It’s somewhat amazing that SEGA is investing so heavy on multimedia projects for free mobile games, but these are the times we live in now.
SEGA’s NOAH Pass service was created as a replacement to GREE. GREE is a popular social networking site that also offers a hub for users to download free-to-play mobile games, the issue is that GREE take a percentage of the profits made through microtransactions. SEGA launched NOAH Pass as their own hub to save them from paying a percentage to GREE. When it launched back in August 2013 the service only had 15 developers publishing their titles on the service and it has now increased to a whopping 88 developers. Not only that but the number of users has quadruple from 20 million users on launch to 89.1 million users.
To round up, here are some more pieces of information announced in the report and a quick recap of what was said in this article;
- The group is set to release 20 new mobile titles the following fiscal year.
- Development of 20 broken down as: 10 from SEGA Networks, 5 from SEGA and 5 co-developed/published
- Revenue expected to be 31.4 billion yen, up 10.5 billion yen from last year (Actually already above last year with the first 3 quarters.)
- Ange Vierge will be joining Chain Chronicle in getting its own anime.
- Sonic Dash has recorded 98 million downloads, total Sonic series has 143.5 million downloads.
- Interesting one, Ignited Artists which is “comprised of experienced PC online/home video game developers” set to release a new title next fiscal year. I wonder if that hints at a MMO rather than a mobile title?
- NOAH Pass has increased the number of develops using the service: from 15 developers in 2013 to 88 developers. Also increased userbase from 20 million users to 89.1 million.
This is all with Sonic Runners only having a soft launch in Canada and Japan. Just imagine the increase revenue when it finally gets a world wide release?
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In the mid-00’s Sega could have easily abonded home consoles, when they had Arcade hits making lots of cash at their peak (ya know thos big ass card machines)
Despite this, they invested pretty good on the big games.
I hope the same happens again…that’s my hope.
There is no way SEGA is leaving the home market, but they’ll be focusing on PC/Steam from hear on out and less on consoles. That is fine with me.
Not to be all doom and gloom but would it really be a loss of Sega did leave the home console market? They aren’t exactly known for the quality they used to be anymore, the Sega logo used to emphasize quality once upon a time, now it’s devolved closer to a generic third party tag with Sonic being their main cash cow, and Ryu Ga Gotoku in Japan, the reason for this is simple, Sega sacrificed the quality they were once known for in exchange of turning profits, which is no singular bad thing when you realise Sega’s financial health wasn’t the best, they aren’t industry leaders anymore, but at least they still exist and are profitable to a degree.
Sega might be smaller on home console scene these days, but maybe they can become big on the mobile scene and carve out a whole new market.
I don’t know if I have played much or not enough of Chain Chronicle to understand that people could pay to play it, I’m about to beat the first map/area and I can’t really understand it, the problem about the “energy” typical to mobile games, I can stay half an hour or more reading all story quests text I have the energy to do and after that I call it a day, I’ll guess people skipping scenes and only fighting could find it a short session, I frankly don’t find the combat mechanics that much interesting in order to play the game only for that. And that’s why most mobile games are kind of a waster of time to me, because there is not even a simple story to follow, the opposite of Chain Chronicle.
Well, they do it to get rare cards and characters.