Sonic's Moved 1.51 Billion Game Sales and Downloads (If You Include Mobile)

[GX -The Spindash-]

How many hedgehogs does it take to maintain a 30-year-old multimedia franchise? At least 1.51 billion according to SEGA Sammy's latest 2022 Integrated investor report, spread across physical and digital game units and mobile downloads.

While it seems like a stretch to include free-to-play mobile download numbers in your units sold, it's worth keeping in mind that the target of this report is not internet bragging rights, it's investors looking at SEGA as a potential financial opportunity. By SEGA's internal numbers, the 1.51 billion stands far and away above the company's second place unit mover, the Total War franchise with over 40.4 million units, followed by Puyo Puyo at about 37.7 million, and Chain Chronicles at about 25.0 million (both including free to play downloads).

SEGA board director Shuji Utsumi attributed the franchise's recent successes to the Paramount films, and the company is pursuing international multimedia deals for other SEGA franchises (you may recall they're working on developing a live action Yakuza/Like a Dragon project). Beyond this, there's not significant change in the Sonic business structure here: make new games, remaster old games, license movies, make/license animation, collaborate with other games, and assemble licensing partnerships. In an ambitious prediction, SEGA forcasts Sonic sales to increase by nearly 10 billion yen from 2022 to 2023.

As with prior financial reports, everyone's favorite "Super Game" concept still looms as an incredibly ambitious promise to investors, directly suggesting that... whatever it is will give SEGA's profits a significant boost from 2024 onwards.

But the most important reveal in this year's Integrated Report is, without doubt, the cover, comprised of stock photos of children jumping alongside Sonic Origins stock on a solid white background.

Ain't it cute.

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[TSS Classic Comment Bot]

Posted By: Greatsong1

Sales of the mobile games should be on a separate list, and not mixed with those numbers imo.

Overall something about this Sega IPs sales list feels suspicious. I mean its a bit odd that Virtua Fighter appearently sold more than Shin Megami Tensei and Persona, and I’m saying this as a VF fan.

[TSS Classic Comment Bot]

Posted By: Bertodecosta

Because it included Virtua Fighter: Cool Champ and Virtua Fighter: Fever Combo for Mobile.

[GX -The Spindash-]

This document exists to make them look good to investors, so as long as they’re not explicitly lying, they can use whatever actual human math they want to. It’s not as if this is an actual game sales report.

As for Shin Megami Tensei and Persona, there’s a note that explains that the listed numbers only includes sales after SEGA acquired Atlus in 2013, so this wouldn’t even include the original release of Persona 4.

[TSS Classic Comment Bot]

Posted By: Greatsong1

Yeah sadly that makes sense business-wise. They probably use the same method for the upcoming actual sales report.

Ah that explains it.