Sega announced its financial results for the fiscal year that ended on March 31, 2023, alongside insight into its future plans.
According to the announcement, that the whole company recorded net sales of 389,635 million yen, (up 21.4% year-on-year), while operating income was 46,789 million yen, up 46.0% year-on-year.
For the Entertainment Contents business, net sales were 282,881 million yen (up 19.9% year-on-year), while ordinary income was 41,181 million yen, up 11.7% year-on-year.
This solid performance was in part due to the strong sales of some new games in the consumer area (IE: full games for consoles and PC) including Sonic Frontiers and the multiplatform remaster of Persona 5 Royal. On the other hand, cooling market conditions caused sales of games released in previous years to be weak.
For the next fiscal year (which started this month and will end in March 2024), Sega expects sales of new games to increase among other things, leading to 305 million yen in net sales and 45 million yen in operating income. Both metrics would mark another significant year-on-year improvement.
While in the past fiscal year Sega shipped just over 10 million units of consumer games, they expect to ship 14.12 million units in the current fiscal year.
We also learn that Sonic Frontiers has now shipped over 3.2 million units as of the end of March 2023, while the Persona 5 Royal multiplatform remaster passed 1.7 million units. The latest numbers we had were 2.9 million and 1.3 million units respectively by the end of 2022, so both games are continuing to sell steadily.
For the current fiscal year ending in March 2023, Sega plans the global simultaneous launch and multi-platform support for 12 new non-mobile games, which are expected to sell 12 million units (it's worth mentioning that the English version of the announcement includes a typo and reports 1.2 million units. The Japanese version has the correct figure).
These include Sonic Origins Plus, Like A Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name, Endless Dungeon, and more. Most are unannounced. Among these, the company expects 5 million units to be remasters and remakes like the aforementioned Sonic Origins Plus, Samba de Amigo: Party Central, and Etrian Odyssey Origins Collection.
Sega also plans to keep supporting subscription services with multiple new games.
According to the company, the conversion of its current IPs into global IPs is progressing and the growth strategy is moving to the next stage. The core factors in that strategy going forward are treating its IP pool as a treasure island and reviving and scaling globally recognized IPs by reforming them to fit modern demand.
We also hear more about the acquisition of Rovio, which Sega hopes will change its mobile footprint from 12% overseas and 88% in Japan to 45% overseas and 55% in Japan. The following synergies between the two companies are expected:
- Utilization of Rovio’s distinctive know-how in live service mobile game operation, to bring SEGA’s current and new titles to the global mobile gaming market, where there is large potential, and many users can be accessed.
- Rapid expansion of both companies’ fanbase by sharing know-how regarding multi-media expansion of global characters.
- Support cross-platform expansion of Rovio’s IP using SEGA’s capabilities.
If you're interested in comparing the new results with historical data, you can read our previous article, related to the nine-month period between April 2022 and December 2002.
