Sega's gaming biz loses $77 million

Not even Captain America could save Sega's bottom line. Parent company Sega Sammy today reported slumping sales and profits in its financial results for the first half of the fiscal year, with the game division falling notably short of expectations.

From April through September, Sega Sammy posted total sales of ¥152.6 billion ($2 billion), down nearly 30 percent year-over-year. Net profits were also down sharply for the publisher, off 84 percent from the previous year's first half to finish at ¥3.9billion ($50 million).

Stripping away Sega Sammy's pachinko and arcade machines and entertainment centers, the consumer business division that includes Sega's PC and console operations was also down. First-half sales sank nearly 14 percent to ¥33.4 billion ($428 million), while the segment posted an operating loss of ¥6 billion ($77 million).

The multiplatform movie tie-in Captain America: Super Soldier was the company's best-selling new release for the July-September quarter, racking up 450,000 copies sold in Europe and the US. The Xbox 360 Kinect-exclusive Rise of Nightmares was the company's next-biggest international new release, selling 200,000 copies worldwide. The Japan-exclusive PSP management sim J-League Pro Soccer Club Tsukurou 7 rounded out the company's major releases, also moving 200,000 copies.

On a larger scale, the publisher missed its sales forecasts on every platform. Game sales for the Nintendo 3DS were particularly disappointing, as the publisher had told investors to expect nine Sega games to combine for sales of half a million copies by the end of September. In that time frame, the publisher actually shipped just two games for the system, with combined sales of 30,000 copies.