SEGA-SAMMY’s latest financial report is now out. So let’s dig our fingers into this baby and find out how SEGA did and what their plans are for the future.
How SEGA-Sammy Did:
The financial statement decided to mix software sales with Atlus titles. According to the statement SEGA/Atlus sold a combined 9.2 million units in 12 months. This is rather low but when you take into account that both Atlus and SEGA didn’t publish big titles this year, its not hard to see why its so low. SEGA’s biggest titles since March of last year were Yakuza: Kiwami and Football Manager. While Atlus did release a lot more titles, their top selling Persona 5 was delayed and now preparing to come out this summer.
While SEGA has been releasing more low risk releases this year and afar few of them, it seems it has helped the company as a whole. In the last financial statement the company lost ¥11.3 billion ($104 million USD), but practically turned it around to ¥5.3 billion ($49 million USD) in profit! While it isn’t a large amount of money, its a lot better to make a little money than to lose money. SEGA’s own operating income (money made before taxes) was ¥4.2 ($39 million USD) billion yen (down to ¥3.6 due part of their business transferring to Sammy), which is a gigantic increase from last years mere ¥1.5 billion ($14 million USD).
SEGA has stated that digital game downloads have increased from last year, even though many hardcore gamers still consider stuff like mobile games a fad it seems that isn’t the case (at least not yet). Not only that, most of SEGA’s revenue came from digital games at ¥45.6 billion ($420 million USD), despite this they still lost 400 million yen ($3.6 million USD) on digital games. On the flip side, despite making less sales their packaged games made more money this year at ¥2.4 billion ($22 million USD) in operating income. How did this happen? Personally think its due to SEGA releasing more digital titles and having flops like Sonic Runners and World End’s Eclipse. While they have been more cautious on what they release as a package title, only releasing stuff that is sure to hit expectations.
The Future:
Since this financial report is trying to predict what happens in the next 12 months at SEGA-Sammy and Atlus, I want to say that this report ended on March 31st. So consider that when reading what SEGA-Sammy expect for the next year.
Like we stated, SEGA sold a measly 9.2 million units between SEGA and Atlus. This isn’t so bad considering both publishers didn’t have big titles published. I was a bit shocked to discover that SEGA only expects to sell 12.2 million units in the next year, which isn’t a huge jump from what they did this year. This is their number despite having big titles like Yakuza 6, Total War: Warhammer, Football Manager 2017, Sonic Boom: Fire and Ice, and Persona 5. Makes me wonder if SEGA is going to release their next Sonic Team Sonic the Hedgehog game in the next 12 months? You’d think they’d predict a bit more than that if it was coming out this year, right? According to SEGA they expect a bulk of their software sales to come from outside of Japan, they said they expect 10 million sales in non-Japanese markets and only 2.2 million in Japan. That will result in their projected 12.2 million.
SEGA has stated that they are expecting to double their profits this year, which isn’t surprising considering how they have bigger releases to work with now compared to the releases we had last year. SEGA is expected to have a operating income of ¥9 billion ($83 million USD) , while net profit (after taxes) for the SEGA-Sammy as a whole will be ¥10 billion yen (92 million USD).
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Sega needs to ship a new, major, Sonic game in the next 12 months or so to cooperate with other branding initiatives. That we know. And they have to in order to keep in the black.
My hope is that Sega reinvests profits in internal R&D, and sets up at least one new Japanese gaming studio. Sega needs to make more internal games, and tap existing IP.
Nice article breaking down stuff I wouldn’t have understood otherwise. The 1st pic you chose was great, the Persona 5 one was too bland.
I would like it if SEGA were to release a good Sonic game. I don’t care if its just decent or if its the same old thing, I just want a new one.
I saw the first picture on this post while listening to Greasy Sweet from Sly 3.
If was in change of sega i would bring out new console called sega phoenix which lets you play old games and new games too and its own ebay like shop and its own shop to sell old and new games by download or games like from shop and also sell posters and keyrings and post cards and videos showing interviews from people who made classic games and it should help you to make indie games thank you very