Sega’s Latest Games for Consoles and PC Performed Well; Financial Results Announced

Today Sega released its financial results for the first quarter of the fiscal year, which relates to the period between April 1 and June 30, 2019.

Below you can see the results of the company as a while, showing all relevant figures in the black and improving year-over-year.

The same can be said about the Entertainment Contents business, which includes games.

Digging deeper in the results, we get a breakdown for the Entertainment Contents Business, which shows figures in the black for both digital and packaged games. Even here, we see year-over-year growth.

The press release includes a summary of the performance of the Entertainment Contents Business. Interestingly new games in the packaged software field (games for consoles and PC) are said to have “performed well.”

“Regarding the environment of the Entertainment Contents Business, in the digital game software field, the strong competitive environment continues, especially as top-ranking titles remain unchanged in Japan.

With regard to the packaged game software market, in the market for hardware of home video game consoles, are expanding, mainly in overseas, for the expansion of the game software sales market due to the growing penetration of current-generation video game console hardware.

In addition, there is growing expectation that the overseas digital sales market will expand with the launch of new platforms and services.”

“In the digital game software field, profitability significantly improved due to the strong sales of some existing titles and the income such as title transfers.

In the packaged game software field, while a decline in repeat sales of previously launched titles compared to the same period in the previous fiscal year, sales amounted to 6,240 thousand copies (5,700 thousand copies for the same period in the previous fiscal year) due to the sales of new titles performed well.”

We also get an explanation of the forecast for the full fiscal year ending in March 2020. Sega promises to strengthen IP development on multiple platforms and in all regions.

“In the digital game software field, the Group will strive to optimize the number of titles in operation among existing titles for mobile devices, while striving to increase the rate of new titles that capitalize on IPs, which are expected to be more profitable.

In the packaged game software field, the Group will further strengthen IP development for multiple devices in all regions as well as launching multiple new titles including titles that capitalize on IPs, such as the Official Video Games of the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 in the second half of the fiscal year. At the same time, the Group aims to increase profitability through repeat sales of existing titles (catalog titles).”

Below you can see a few tables showcasing more details about the business performance and the upcoming games. Do keep in mind that “Q2~” means during and after Q2, so of course, the new Yakuza game isn’t coming in the current quarter (in case you had any doubt).

If you’re interested in comparing, you can check out the results related to the previous quarter, disclosed in April.