SEGA Sammy Financials: Pachislots up, Video Games Down in Q3 2023

Hmm....no big releases, well...superstars; but that was divicive as it was old school but not old school and was a tad over priced for what it was....frontiers is a good year old. Not sure if this is actually pretty good for Sonic in that context.

I think that they may have bet a little bit too big with Superstars.

The price was not worth the overall value & it came out 3 days before a major rival platformer released (which was also cheaper to buy). 

That being said, even if it was a quality title (like Wonder) I still believe it would have struggled against the competition.

I think that poor release timing, that it wasn’t Sonic Mania 2, and the assumption that Frontiers huge sales would boost into Superstars based on the IP alone was just some misguided calculations here. Also don’t forget that Origins Plus released just months prior - so there could be some burnout on the 2D platformer side. 

Ultimately, the consumers know what they want, and it clearly wasn’t this game (or as much as SEGA hoped anyway).

Fingers crossed that the Knuckles series and the 3rd Sonic Movie’s criss cross media promotion will help drum up some interest for the next game entries. I’m very intrigued to see how Sonic x Shadow Generations is going to perform in the run up in lieu of this. 

Superstars certainly didn't have Mania's word of mouth.  It's unfortunate that it will probably be judged not on its individual failings but on the kind of game it is.

Darn it - phone goof replicated my post when I was just trying to edit it. *ignore*

https://www.ign.com/articles/sega-issues-financial-warning-after-sluggish-sales-of-sonic-superstars-endless-dungeon-and-total-war-pharaoh

Quote

Sega has issued a financial warning after what it called “sluggish” and “weak” sales during the crucial holiday 2023 period.

Reporting its financial performance for the nine month period ending December 2023, Sega said it had revised its sales and profit forecast down “mainly due to weak sales” of new games released during the third quarter of the financial year.

“In the Consumer area, although we released some new titles in Q3, including Sonic Superstars, Endless Dungeon, and Total War: Pharaoh, sales went sluggish during the holiday sales season,” Sega said.

The company also recorded losses associated with an inventory write-down “in response to these sales conditions”. “As a result of these factors, etc., both sales and ordinary income are expected to be lower than previous forecast,” Sega said.

Financials are still remarkable overall for Sonic, with 5 million units sold for the franchise overall, but it seems Sega had expectations of premium sales for Superstars when 1. It released in the busiest week of the year and 2. it never looked like a premium title, to be honest. I think their expectations were a bit misplaced here. I know a lot of people who would have bought it but were priced out by the premium angle.

Superstars's marketing didn't even properly begin until it was already released, so perhaps the continued price cuts and word of mouth will give it the solid legs these games tend to have.

Sega is so doomed. Only Maria getting shot can save us.

I can see why Superstars didn't sell as well as SEGA hoped.  For one thing, we didn't even know about this game until the last minute, so many people weren't aware of this game and therefore, there was barely any hype for this game when it finally did release.  And another thing, it was competing against Mario Wonder, which is probably the worst thing SEGA could have done for this game.  If SEGA had actually promoted Superstars a little better, then maybe this game would have done better in sales.

Also they charged way too much for it and that factored in to why it so frequently got clowned in reviews.

I'm recomending Sonic games to people for some reason... and this is the reason! DON'T SELL GAMES ON THE SAME WEEK AS A MARIO GAME.

Mario Wonder probably had much less to do with these numbers than y'all are attributing to it.

The entire reason Superstars even exists over something like a Mania 2 is because they were looking to maximize the profitability of the 2D style well above its ceiling. There has never been a hint of an indication that the 2D games have had a ghost of a chance of inspiring the kind of momentum that Frontiers pushed in todays market. Mania itself, which was essentially Jesus second coming, did not garnish that type of hype despite is acclaim and stellar reputation. If Mania didn't hit that threshold, what hope would any 2D game have in the near future?

Superstars didn't sell poorly per se, it under-performed when bench-marched against Frontiers. Sega was chasing fools gold from the start, thinking that those numbers were a good target to aim for. They got swept up in their own hype a bit.

Persona and Yakuza will push the numbers in the next quarter, so I'm not worried about the overall down-tick in sales.

eh there was a lotta potential for superstar ik its a good game but ik it could be better