Sonic Superstars SEGA Says Sonic Superstars Competing With Similar Titles Led To Unexpectedly Low Sales

[SSF1991]

2023 was a very busy year, and not just for Sonic fans! A lot of Game Of The Year candidates and hyped video games released last year. There really wasn't much SEGA could do about that, but it didn't help matters that Sonic Superstars released mere days before a certain other 2D platformer featuring plumbers and mushrooms launched mere days after Sonic Superstars did. Sales of the new Classic Sonic game were lower than expected, and SEGA says that the awkward releasing timing contributed to that.

SEGA's remarks about the matter came from their Q3 fiscal year report results briefing that released earlier today. It is during this portion of fiscal year results that investors like to ask the company heads questions about how things are doing and where things are going, and one of the questions was about the performance of Sonic Superstars. As previously mentioned, the game ended up selling lower than SEGA expected.

Now, it's not all bad news. SEGA did mention that Sonic Superstars "has generally been well received by those who have played it", so they did have something positive to share. They also revealed that "the strategic expansion of Sonic IP is progressing well", which they are probably referring to the franchise branching off into other forms of media, like Netflix content such as Sonic Prime and, of course, movies such as the Sonic films.

Of course, it is still worth noting that the main point of the question was Sonic Superstars. And SEGA does state that "the timing of the launch coincided with competing titles in the same genre, and it has been short of the initial forecast". It really isn't a stretch to say that they're referring to Super Mario Bros. Wonder, which released just 3 days after Sonic Superstars did.

So, what now? Well, SEGA's not letting things just continue as they are. They obviously can't change what has already happened, but they can still work on what happens in the future. They even say that "we will continue to work to increase repeat sales of this title", so they're not moving on just yet. There's a possibility that we might see more DLC outfits to come, for example, so it's likely that they'll be continuing support for Sonic Superstars for at least another year. We'll see if SEGA's efforts pay off.

Via SEGA

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[SadVlad]

I wouldn't necessarily agree with them on that statement because I'm not sure that had anything to do with their projected sales quota not being met. And I say this because I bought both games. I'm sure alot of other people did as well. So I don't think the release of another game played a major factor in that. Either people were interested in Superstars, or they weren't. But they have made over 2.4 million in a matter of months. Frontier's has been out over a year and just broke over 3.5 million. Hopefully sales will still rise, and I hope this isn't foreshadowing the end of content updates for the game.

Not to mention Superstars was cross platform so it should of had an advantage over Wonder.

[castell-neath]

No mention of Frontiers DLC 3 launching a few weeks later, which was free and completley revolutionised that game. That gave people a sonic fix without having to buy superstars.

[DaBigJ]

Maybe the game flopped because the bosses and multiplayer blew chunks SEGA

Maybe the game flopped because of the $60 price tag SEGA

 

Get your fingers out of your ears SEGA

[Salamander]

I could believe that there is a significant number of people who could only afford one of Wonder and Superstars and plumped for Wonder.  But average reviews and poor word-of-mouth for Superstars won't have helped either.  We can't pretend the game didn't make missteps.

[castell-neath]

4 hours ago, DaBigJ said:

Maybe the game flopped because the bosses and multiplayer blew chunks SEGA

Maybe the game flopped because of the $60 price tag SEGA

 

Get your fingers out of your ears SEGA

You wont like the RRP of the pre order for Sonic X Shadow Generations then... in the uk its listed at 59.99 at Game 

[DaBigJ]

10 minutes ago, castell-neath said:

You wont like the RRP of the pre order for Sonic X Shadow Generations then... in the uk its listed at 59.99 at Game 

I don't think any sonic game is with anything more than 20 dollars honestly, even if it's a remaster of my favorite sonic game bundled with a new campaign

[Thigolf]

Releasing a middling platformer at an insane price tag right next to the genre's leader in both sales and quality will do that, yes.

There's quite a bit to learn for them from this release and I hope they take more away from this than "Mario release window bad". 

 

[A super No.1 washedupgamer]

6 hours ago, castell-neath said:

No mention of Frontiers DLC 3 launching a few weeks later, which was free and completley revolutionised that game. That gave people a sonic fix without having to buy superstars.

There was no mention of dream team either.

[Indigo Rush]

Not so much a swing and a miss as it is a swing with a direct hit, but the baseball bat rebounds to no effect on the target and smacks them right back in the face

[castell-neath]

I still think a QUALITY dlc would save this game. Not crappy skins, but actual content - levels / reverse mode (with trophies) a prologue like Episode Fang...or just Fang's story and swap the bosses with Trip, Amy, Sonic, etc etc. 

With a few tweeks and a few extras,it could be great game to revist / pick up

[Suonike]

I didn't play this at any conventions so the fact that they didn't release a demo for the game on PSN (or likely any stores, for that matter), allowing me to try out the physics and gameplay aspect of the game for myself just forced me to go off of my impressions of videos of the gameplay - which didn't seem as promising as touted. Otherwise, they may have had my interest enough for a sale.

[Rabid-Coot]

Its the same story every year, everyone crowds into the same period to get those lucrative holiday sales and then turns around to blame the crowded release period if their game under performs.

[Metal]

I dunno. The impression I got from it was that even though it was priced like a AAA game, it really wasn't one. It seemed like a little diversion for the series rather than the next must-have title like Frontiers. The kind that normally would have been relegated to the GBA or DS in times past. Plus I just fundamentally don't think multiplayer co-op really fits with the classic Sonic formula, and that seemed like a big focus of this release. Sure, competing with Mario didn't help, but even devoid of his influence I think this game would have fallen short of predicted sales.

[LongcrierCat]

It also could be that Nintendo's marketing campaigns are larger than Sega's and so everyone is accepting a middling platformer over an equally middling platformer which neither are worth their price tags by any means.

If Freedom Planet 2 is worth 25 dollars then so is Mario Wonder and Sonic Superstars.

60 is too much for 2D platformers, especially without trigger warnings that your new Mario looks like the stage itself got a epileptic unfriendly Starman powerup.

But hey...

I would have paid 40 for a new Freedom Planet over getting either of those two games and Penny's Big Breakaway just released for 30 dollars. I just think "Triple A" game corporations overcharge for mediocre products.

Also reminder that Rayman Origins is 20 dollars rn on Steam. Oh nevermind.... it and Rayman Legends are 6 dollars right now for two more hours.

You know... because those do both of those games' multiplayer aspects way better.

Edited February 29 by LongcrierCat

[Metal]

44 minutes ago, LongcrierCat said:

60 is too much for 2D platformers,

Strong disagree there. Metroid Dread was well worth $60 and when they were new both DKC Returns games were also worth it. While I took some issues with it, I think Kirby Star Allies was shooting for that, and is still probably worth $45-ish. I haven't played Mario Wonder, but my impression is that it too is worthy of that price tag as well, like most of Mario's mainline games. It's just that practically no one is competing with Nintendo in that space. It's mostly indies and those, while often excellent, do tend to lack the depth of content and level of graphical polish that Nintendo includes. Frankly I think Rayman Legends was underpriced when it came out and it too could have retailed for $60 if they had pushed it harder. But Sonic Superstars just doesn't compare to those titles.

[LongcrierCat]

21 minutes ago, Metal said:

Strong disagree there. Metroid Dread was well worth $60 and when they were new both DKC Returns games were also worth it. While I took some issues with it, I think Kirby Star Allies was shooting for that, and is still probably worth $45-ish. I haven't played Mario Wonder, but my impression is that it too is worthy of that price tag as well, like most of Mario's mainline games. It's just that practically no one is competing with Nintendo in that space. It's mostly indies and those, while often excellent, do tend to lack the depth of content and level of graphical polish that Nintendo includes. Frankly I think Rayman Legends was underpriced when it came out and it too could have retailed for $60 if they had pushed it harder. But Sonic Superstars just doesn't compare to those titles.

And you're free to disagree.

I just think it's scummy for Corporations to charge people 60 dollars for games that will easily sell a few million copies at the least and make back their budgets and none of that goes to employee raises or bonus payouts while the CEOs rake all of that in and consumers have the gall to justify that level of Reaganomics corporate ass kissing.

Indie games should be totally be priced more as they're more likely risks for their developers over a corporate title.

No Nintendo game is worth 60 dollars anymore let alone 70.

50 at most.

And even WarioWare: Move It was pushing it.

Edited February 29 by LongcrierCat

[Salamander]

Given that video games for the NES and Genesis were being priced at $60 even in the 1980s, I think that the mobile space has completely destroyed people's understanding of what a reasonable price looks like to the especial detriment of indies who don't have the clout to charge what their game is actually worth, and so games as a whole are probably more often underpriced than overpriced.

[Kuzu]

People pay for what they feel a game's given value is. It's a lot easier to justify paying $60 for a Mario where the quality is guaranteed versus Sonic where the quality is always up in the air until you actually play it.

[LongcrierCat]

Games from corporations just aren't worth 60 dollars.

You can't argue me down from this.

[Metal]

5 hours ago, LongcrierCat said:

I just think it's scummy for Corporations to charge people 60 dollars for games that will easily sell a few million copies at the least and make back their budgets and none of that goes to employee raises or bonus payouts while the CEOs rake all of that in and consumers have the gall to justify that level of Reaganomics corporate ass kissing.

Oh no arguments there. But that has nothing to do with how the game is priced. Whether it's $70 or $5 the people who should be earning the lion's share of the profits won't be seeing it.

And while there are myriad reasons to hate Nintendo's business practices, by all accounts they treat their employees much better than most game companies. Unlike everwhere else recently they didn't fire huge swaths of people for example, or there's the famous story of Iwata taking a huge pay cut when the Wii U bombed instead of pushing all those losses onto the rank and file.

[Sega DogTagz]

5 hours ago, LongcrierCat said:

Games from corporations just aren't worth 60 dollars.

You can't argue me down from this.

So if I hand you Skyrim and its hundreds of hours worth of content you'd balk at a $60 price tag? Or if you get hooked on a multiplayer game like Monster Hunter, which can easily eat more than a 1000 hrs of someones life, you wouldn't say that's worth 60 bucks? 

 

 

Don't make blanket statements. Judge each thing on its own merits.

[ZinogreVolt]

1 hour ago, Metal said:

Oh no arguments there. But that has nothing to do with how the game is priced. Whether it's $70 or $5 the people who should be earning the lion's share of the profits won't be seeing it.

And while there are myriad reasons to hate Nintendo's business practices, by all accounts they treat their employees much better than most game companies. Unlike everwhere else recently they didn't fire huge swaths of people for example, or there's the famous story of Iwata taking a huge pay cut when the Wii U bombed instead of pushing all those losses onto the rank and file.

Japan has laws guarding against such practices. It's quite illegal to fire employees en masse like that, which is why Japanese companies don't engage in mass layoffs. Iwata's call to cut his payment in half also wasn't actually necessary in maintaining the bottom line (relative to US CEOs, Nintendo's highest ranking officials don't make too much money anyway), so employees would have been fine regardless. He did it more so to send a message and acknowledge failures in making the Wii U a success, which employees did very much respect him for and it boosted morale across the whole company. 

That being said, I think Nintendo is smart in not doing gigantic price cuts on their games very often. But they are in a fortunate position of their whole brand and image, especially right now, being associated with premium quality games. Sega and especially Sonic don't have that luxury, so Superstars was fighting an uphill battle being priced as it was, and that's before factoring in its short length being unattractive. As a whole it was just a pretty badly mismanaged product. It clearly wasn't finished on time, got sacked with a super poor release window, and the game's suboptimal word of mouth probably won't ensure long term sales like with Frontiers or Mania. Once Sonic x Shadow Generations is out, I expect Superstars to firmly be kicked out of the public conscience.

[LongcrierCat]

2 hours ago, Metal said:

Oh no arguments there. But that has nothing to do with how the game is priced. Whether it's $70 or $5 the people who should be earning the lion's share of the profits won't be seeing it.

And while there are myriad reasons to hate Nintendo's business practices, by all accounts they treat their employees much better than most game companies. Unlike everwhere else recently they didn't fire huge swaths of people for example, or there's the famous story of Iwata taking a huge pay cut when the Wii U bombed instead of pushing all those losses onto the rank and file.

You know... fair. But the price is still ridiculous especially since they stay until Nintendo Selects.

1 hour ago, Sega DogTagz said:

So if I hand you Skyrim and its hundreds of hours worth of content you'd balk at a $60 price tag? Or if you get hooked on a multiplayer game like Monster Hunter, which can easily eat more than a 1000 hrs of someones life, you wouldn't say that's worth 60 bucks? 

 

 

Don't make blanket statements. Judge each thing on its own merits.

Skyrim is so full of nothing it was never worth 60 dollars at any point and Monster Hunter isn't my thing but I'm sure it's fun for other people.

I just think videogames shouldn't command over 50 hours of someone's time just to even complete it one time.

No, I don't enjoy Open World Games. Sonic Frontiers was the first one I genuinely enjoyed and I've played Elden Ring for at least a good 5-6 hours. That was enough of a chance for that one.

Now I know that isn't a popular opinion, but I don't speak my opinion to be popular as much as I do to speak my mind on how I feel about corporate practices.

The only time I enjoyed paying a heftier price on a game was Doom Eternal, but even then I think that was more worth 40 dollars despite the great time I had with it.

I've not felt any videogame from a corporation is worth 60 let alone 70 in a long time.

Especially if they paywall features like new game plus behind microtransactions if Like a Dragon's new entry was anything to go by.

Edited March 1 by LongcrierCat

[The Swordsman]

This is sad to hear, I honestly did enjoy the game more than Mania. (Though that Fang Mech can go to Hell.) Though the wording has me wondering if the game was actually a flop or is it the case where the company's expectations were unrealistically high? Like thinking it would somehow match or outdo Frontiers?