SEGA Issues Financial Warning After 'Sluggish' Sales Over Holiday Period

Gotta go...slow?

There last 2 games r hits there fine they also layed people off they saved money 💰 🤑

I mean none of the games they released last year were honestly that big, so it makes sense. Even the big franchise games all had caveats (Sonic Superstars wasn’t the best and released the week of Spiderman and Mario, no one cares for Persona 5 anymore, and Like a Dragon Gaiden was digital only)

Gaiden was really good. I'm sure it did well.
Sonic superstars i doubt did that well though. It's been constantly on sale since release. I don't think that is the 2D Sonic players want. Sonic Mania is the way to go.
As for Persona 5 spin offs... i think that was one milking too much.

Several of these are on GP. I wonder if that hurt sales more on other platforms than what they got paid to be on GP.

Outside of that, several of the games turned out to be pretty average or bad (total war) in a year of excellent games, average ones were always going to take a hit.

Sonic Superstars was a bizarre release, from the timing of it, to its price being more than double that of Mania. Then you had Gaiden which is a great game but didn't get a physical release in the West, luckily having an English version I could import.

They've certainly had a better last few weeks

Sonic Superstars' dissapointing sales are no surprise, with it being released on the same week as Spiderman 2 and SMB Wonder (among other factors).

Lessons:

Dont release Sonic in the same week as Spiderman and Mario

Recognise the fact that the traditional audience who plays Yakuza titles would have liked a physical release of Gaiden.

Dont milk the Persona franchise . I have Tactica, but as a masive fan of the franchise, i'll admit it felt like one spinoff game too far

Don't overly stack all your cards in such a short space of time. People have limited money to spend on games and many other companies released strong titles during Q3

It seems to have worked for you, but releasing two 60-70 plus hour titles (infinite wealth and Persona 3) within weeks of each other seems daft. People only have so much time to play

@Drago201 Problem is Sonic Superstars (part of there biggest franchise ever) was an utter flop and is NOT considered in a good place in the fansbases eyes either

Don’t let M$ know. They will swoop in and offer financial support before consuming outright.

Yeah I know, I’m cynical 😂

Time for Sonic Mania 2

@guestwork yeah I can see that but that's kind of there fault for hedging there bets on one product 🤔

But, they coup success on this 1st quarter. They'll be fine

Sega have also reported to be making around $5bn a year now, which has increased.

The problem is these corporations think they need to make more profits each year. It's driving inflation through the roof and then analysts blame employee wage growth for inflation and not soaring corporate profits.

What needs to happen is corporations, on the backs of ever increasing profits, need to take a hit to the percentages for a few years, rather than people taking real-terms wage cuts.

I think they need a new game. The only game I like from the line up on their website is Aliens Isolation and that's an old game now.

@Deoxyr1bose Just a small piece of info if anyone is interested in the physical edition of Like a Dragon: Gaiden. There are English physical version on PlayAsia and if you're in Europe you can purchase it on "bazaar - bazaar . eu".

Since this is not exactly convenient, to a regular buyer Gaiden really is digital only.

@Gamakazil I've been thinking about that as well. Man, I hope we get a Three Kingdoms sequel before that happens.

This issue was totally self-inflicted. There are SO many reasons why this happened that no one can even list them all. They pushed way too hard on this holiday season.

I am curious to know if the large revenue stream Phantasy Star Online 2: New Genesis brings to SEGA is incorporated in these sales reports or not. I didn't see any mention of it from any of the outlets so I'm going to assume not. It might be self-sustained since its live-service and SEGA doesn't pull from it unless needed. I'm not really sure how it works in a business sense.

SEGA is one of my favourite developers alongside Capcom but they were approaching Square Enix level of self inflicted damage with their nonsensical release schedule last Fall/Winter.

Sega released a lot of games on Gamepass. Surely that has to eat into sales numbers? On PlayStation, they had to contend with big games being release around the same time too. All would make it difficult!

@Gamakazil I'm sure you know better than anyone else that RTS is one of the more niche genres in gaming today (I'm an old C&C fan, so this hurts me as well), but I understand that Sega doubled the price of the DLC, but didn't increase the size of said DLC while populating it with copy-and-paste units. The Total War community rightfully felt insulted by this, and voted with their wallets.

For once I agree with their reasoning. In Canada inflation is horrid and cost of living is absurd. Food is hard to afford, let alone games.

yup, games are just too expensive. these trends are likely to hit most publishers. the better strategy is to release fewer, but better quality games. people will only select a handful each year so it really needs to be quality over quantity. i expect metaphor to do well for sega this year if it appeals to the persona crowd.

It couldn't have helped they released Sonic Superstar right by Mario Wonder. They probably should have delayed it for more polish and to avoid that.

My grocery bill this past week was $180, up from about $100 average just a few years ago. If everyone else is feeling the same squeeze, cuts to entertainment spending is inevitable. Inflation is terrible.

@Gamakazil Ouch. What I knew was second-hand anyway, but that's even worse. And it's not like they can just rescind the Warhammer license either, since Sega's other RTS studio makes the Dawn Of War games.

Sonic Superstars wasn't that great and the bosses weren't fun at all. Now on my RV405V I just beat Sonis 3 and Knickles twice with all 14 meralds for Sonoc and Knuckles and that was blast. Better music too.

@Nem Thing is though, Superstars seems to be doing better than Mania was sales wise. Sega announced Mania sold 1 million copies after a year, whereas the sales report mentions LaD Gaiden, Sonic Superstars and P5 Tactica sold a combined 3.6 million last quarter, meaning it's likely sold at least a million already.

It appears to be a sales letdown for Sega because they expected it to sell 3 million like Frontiers did.

@JeongersGaming We are assuming here.
Regardless the game has seen disappointing sales and reception and it's been on sale on psn every week for months now.
Mania took 8 months to get to 1m but was highly praised and digital only. If it had received the same backing superstars did, it would've sold much more, no doubt.
Also, let's not forget it was achieved without the movies and tv series raising popularity and awareness of the Sonic brand.
Superstars just didn't look up to par and they either need to put more effort into it if they are gonna charge full price or they need to pivot back to 2D.

Release Skies of Arcadia remaster for god's sake that will make you some money back