Sega has officially made their financial earnings report for last year which ended in March. The company revealed that, although that sales did rise overall, profits for them decreased for the second year in a row. In terms of what caused this financial deficit, there were a number of factors that came into play. There were 12 digital titles were initially planned to release the previous year. However, a total of only eight games were released.
The report details that delays, market saturation, competition, and trying to handle too many games in a short period of time were all factored in as reasons responsible for the companies financial woes. Because of this, digital games received the worst results in regards to profits right along with Sega’s slot machines. As for physical copies, sales numbers decreased for titles such as Yakuza 6 and Football Manager 2019, but repeat sales in North America and Europe helped to regain their profits.
For the next financial year, Sega plans to focus on overseas markets as they expect to take a hit within the Japanese market. They aim to make profits on mobile, PC, and physical titles in markets like Asia, North America, and Europe. They also plan on expanding the audience for their games by putting more of their titles on different platforms. However, instead of introducing new IPs into the mix they want to focus on their big franchises at the moment.
For last year Sega stated that their plans “fell significantly below the initial plan due to deterioration of business environment and lack of hit titles.” This could mean that we should expect more already established Japanese console titles to make appearances onto PC’s this year. Yakuza 0 and Yakuza Kiwami did fairly well on PC for the company and Sega seems to want to capitalize on the opportunity.