mcvuk Dominic Sacco wrote:
Publisher posts strong fiscal year results despite a drop in sales
Sega Sammy Holdings has posted a year-on-year increase of almost 200 per cent for its fiscal year ending March 31.
Profits hit £151.8m in the period, up from a loss of £171.3m in the same period last year, while total sales were down 10.4 per cent year-on-year.
These figures take all of Sega Sammy’s business avenues into account including arcade machines, amusement facilities, video games and gambling slot machines.
In the video game software market alone, net sales were down 7.5 per cent year-on-year while profits hit £47.3m, up from a loss of £6.8m the year before. The group cited its success to a number of key titles including Mario & Sonic at the Winter Olympics, Bayonetta and Aliens vs. Predator.
In a statement Sega Sammy said: “Demand was generally weak in the US and European home video game software markets due to sluggish personal consumption.
GamesIndustry.biz writes: "Relic is best known for the Company of Heroes and Dawn of War games, and recently developed the new Age of Empires for Microsoft. Relic will transition to an independent studio and will no-longer be part of the Sega group of studios.
The majority of the 240 job cuts are across Creative Assembly and Sega Europe, while there will be a ‘small number’ cut from Sega HARDLight. There was no mention of other Sega UK studios, including Two Point Studios and Sports Interactive."
Sega had such a turbulent existence from the mid-90s to when they dropped out of console manufacturing entirely in 2001, it’s understandable if you’ve never heard of the Genesis Nomad.
Sega claims Super Mario Bros. Wonder's launch overshadowed Sonic Superstars, affecting sales. Sega remains hopeful for a turnaround.
SEGA in victim mode for many years.. blaming others for doing good never questioning themselves.. no need to be marketing effort to know that releasing a bit of the same sonic at the same time as a very creative and perfectly executed 2D mario would hurt the sales.. well SEGA have one of the most amateur marketing people in the industry
Even when Sega were still in the console business Sonic couldn't compete in terms of sales with Mario. Sonic is hot ragain and Sega still managed to fuck up. Quite the accomplishment.
A lot of bad Sonic games over the years. After Sonic Adventure 2, although Sonic Adventure was better, Sonic died. Apart from the Sonic Racing, that's pretty much it. Sonic Frontiers, SEGA should've knocked out Sonic Adventure 3. These SEGA collections have been knocking around for too long. There's been too much dumbness at SEGA.
Sonic is great but he is nothing when compared to Mario. Nintendo just knows how to utilize Mario better like Mario Maker, Super Smash, Mario Kart, Mario RPG, Mario Paint. Sonic is not a utilizable enough like Mario. Mario can be adapted to different games. Sonic is pretty much run, run, run. Sure Sonic has his own other games but again he is nothing when compared to Mario.