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

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.