SEGA Announce Focus On Digital As Retail Losses Total Nearly $200 Million

nofi 20 Comments

Whilst SEGA’s holding company posted a net income of $273 million, the video game sector saw losses of $189 million over the last financial year.

Some games did well, mind – Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games shifted 3.28 million copies, and the slightly lacklustre Sonic Generations 1.85 million copies, with 17.2 million games sold worldwide in total.

For the coming year, the financial statement hints at software levels for certain consoles: there’ll be eight Vita games, but no Wii or DS games in the next twelve months.

But here’s the killer – SEGA, like others, is adapting its model to move towards digital and mobile sales, with SEGA Networks being formed with Haruki Satomi as president.

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20 Comments

  1. 8 games for Vita? At least someone has remembered it exists…

    • Sony said over 80 are in development near the launch E3 will show a lot more Vita stuff.

      nice to no SEGA have 8 in development as well look forward to seeing them.

      • They needed more out sooner, it’s a bit sparse out there atm, and I know at least one mate who’s already traded his in.

      • @ Mundham

        No offence to your friend, but if he was going to by a launch system without thinking about a post-launch ‘draught’, then maybe he should have thought about it twice. I still play my Vita, because I got it knowing that if the number of games ever went down, I could still pick-up PSP games and the like.

        (Anyway its not that bad, I have/ am interested in: Uncharted, Lumines, WipEout, Fifa, Mutant Blobs Attack, Escape Plan, Rayman Origins, Virtua Tennis, Mortal Kombat and Frobisher Says. Its not the best, but its enough to get through.

  2. Bad times for gaming. Sony massive losses. Sega massive losses. It’s such a huge industry surely a profitable model can be found?

    • I believe the profitable model is to release a sport or FPS game.

    • Though if it wasn’t for flooding, hacking or earthquakes. Sony probably would have made a sizeable profit.

      • I agree on that, almost all of the PlayStation Division’s losses come from the infamous PSN downtime because of the hack, the flooding and earthquake losses from the JPN catastrophe and the production of the PlayStation Vita, as well.

  3. Time to bring the Mega Drive compilations to 3DS, Vita and Wii U.

  4. Digital? How about that Shenmue HD you’ve had lying around for a year?! Some more Saturn ports would be great too! I hope they can return to profitability as over the years they’ve created or published some of my favourite games, and can generally be relied on for material that isn’t like everything else.

  5. There we go, another publisher moving to DD.

    The consoles are soon only going to have retail titles from the dominant publishers. By that i’m thinking of course the big three along with EA, Activision and Ubisoft.

    Probably a bit of a grim and unlikely scenario but i’ve typed it anyway.

  6. 8 Vita titles – hopefully that includes a new Valkyria Chronicles game :)

  7. Unlucky Sega, but a Move to DD is sensible to cut costs and avoid pre-owned, also isolates those with no decent Internet though from any great games.

    I have 30 games for my 360 and 25 of them are from Games on Demand, no problems with Digital Downloads and would be great if you could download a game ready to play midnight the day it’s released.
    But that’s my preference, I can understand how some hate the idea and UK Internet is not up to the task in most places.

  8. Time for Sega to realise nobody wants countless Sonic games. They need some new IPs that aren’t cliche.

    • Ironically, the Sonic games are the ones that make a profit, and the others, including the new IPs made a massive loss.
      What does that say? Sonic is wanted, more than originality.

    • how mean.

  9. Maybe it’s time for a single format? Really can’t see it happening though?

  10. Well, this was a long time coming IMO. I can’t really see it as a loss if they’re gone either, I think by now the industry needs to see some tired publishers like this kick it before we start to see better products and innovations.

    In the mean time, I’ll still be playing my Dreamcast o____o.

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