Sega Sammy full-year profits jump 105%
By
Tom Magrino
Despite weak game sales, publisher rides Sonic Color's 2.18 million units to 3.1 percent revenue climb; Vanquish sells 830,000, Shogun 2 moves 600,000.
Sega Sammy added its name to the list of industry players that turned in positive results for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2011. Reporting on its fiscal 2011 results, Sega Sammy said revenues inched up 3.1 percent during the 12-month period to ¥396.7 billion ($4.91 billion). Meanwhile, profits boomed during the period, jumping 105.4 percent to ¥41.5 billion ($513 million).
For its consumer business (which houses home gaming software and toys), Sega Sammy saw the biggest performance from Sonic Colors, which sold 2.18 million units. Released for the Wii and DS in November 2010, the platformer defied the Sonic franchise's recent trend of poor quality by securing a strong critical reception. Iron Man 2 also broke the platinum milestone, selling 1.54 million units.
Sega Sammy's collaboration with Platinum Games also yielded some success, as Shinji Mikami's sci-fi shooter Vanquish finished the year with 830,000 units sold. Shogun 2: Total War and Phantasy Star Portable 2 Infinity rounded out Sega Sammy's best-seller list, moving 600,000 units and 370,000 units, respectively.
Calling demand "generally weak in the US and European markets," Sega Sammy recognized that it needs to "adapt to changing business environment in which the market demand for new content geared to social networking service (SNS) and smartphone is expanding."
All said, the consumer business posted revenues of ¥89.55 billion ($1.11 billion), which is off 26.5 percent from a year ago. Likewise, operating income fell 68.9 percent to ¥1.97 billion ($24.38 billion).
In projecting its earnings expectations for the in-progress fiscal year ending March 31, 2012, Sega Sammy cautioned that the Japanese market remains wildly unpredictable following the devastating earthquake and tsunami that struck the country on March 11, 2011. Still, Sega Sammy said it expects sales to rise 13.4 percent to ¥450 billion ($5.57 billion), with profit falling off 20.5 percent to ¥33 billion ($408 million).
By
Tom Magrino
Tom Magrino has covered the games industry since 2006. He's been compared to Steve Martin by Ozzy Osbourne and Daniel Craig by Tim Schafer. His voice, heard largely on GameSpot's podcast, recalls that of Kermit the Frog. It ain't easy bein' Magreen.
39 comments
This is absolutely NOT good news... Game's division revenues down 26,5% and income down 68,9% is not a good result for us gamers.... Also, the new focus on SNS and smartphone just turn the things worst...
Congratulation SEGA! , i like sonic games since i was a kid and sega games like Panzer Dragoon, Virtual On, Nights, Shemue, Jet set radio, 5 channel. i cant wait for Guardian Heroes for XBOX360 good job Sega and i hope shining force 3 is coming too!!!! scenario 1,2 and 3
scapegoatsqueal. It's in the works. Trust me. Watch for thier next arcade machine. We'll get a game tablet from them first this years.
W00T! With that kind of cash being raked in every year, a new SEGA console is looking good!
Vanquish numbers arent bad at all Hopefully its enough to make a sequel, you know with online play (not that i want it, but the CoD kids might pick it up as a result)
Congrats Sega. Hopefully an upward trend will allow it to make Streets of Rage 4, Shenmue 3, Skies of Arcadia 2, Panzer Dragoon Saga 2, another Shining title, Virtua fighter 6, and Phantasy Star 5... as well as taking creative chances on amazing titles from Platinum Games. Gamers have been patient long enough.
how about releasing dreamcast collections that dont contain games already available for download?
Ah, 2.18 million for Sonic Colors - I knew VGChartz had to be wrong! Good job Sega, keep making good Sonic games and you'll do just fine.
Wow, good for them. Since they got involved with the Total War franchise I've had conflicting impressions but it's overall pretty good, so here's to hoping for more from Sega.
Vanquish was just so much fun and also got great reviews. I'm sad not many people jumped on board.
I am incredibly surprised. Maybe, if they do well enough, they could turn their software company into a console company. Wouldn't that be cool? Just imagine, Sega making a console. How ludicrous.
Hopefully this means Sonic will return as a huge game character. I love sonic, just the past games were bad.
Good to see them doing a little better; Shogun 2 is the best TW title so far, and I've been meaning to give Vanquish a try. Just keep rolling out good titles Sega!
600k for Shogun 2! Amazing knowing that it's a strategy game in not so popular setting and is a PC exclusive. Good job CA! I'm certain that if they keep the same quality and change setting to ancient times (with Rome 2 maybe?;), they will do 3 or 4 times as good!
So now that you are all profitable SEGA, I just have one question to ask: Can Yu Suzuki be given the budget he needs so we can finally get a chance to play Shenmue 3? Don't tell me it's a money issue!!
That is a freakishly amazing number for Sonic and that is basically for 1 system. Don't know how many actually care to buy it for the DS. Sega should release Sonic Colors for the 360/PS3 so we can have it HD.
@mattg90520 Hate to interrupt your rant, but that's the name of the actual company. Sega merged with Sammy.
Why is it gamespot thinks it funny or clever to come up with these stupid names for game developers? They insist on referring to Nintendo not as Nintendo but the House that MArio Built, now Sega Sammy? Cmon, how lame are you gamespot?
I don't get why Sonic Colors was a Wii exclusive game. Don't get me wrong, the wii is great but there are a lot of Sonic fans that would've bought the game for 360 or PS3. They make a great game but lose 2/3 of what they could have made in sales.
I think it prooves that Sonic Colours was a great success and SEGA can take the postive sales of that game and continue to make Sonic games that are fast paced fun and not with a serious plot.
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