Sega has reaffirmed its commitment to creating a “Super Game” and hopes to have the project in the hands of players by March 2026.
The Japanese publisher said the project will be a “major title that scales globally,” and believes its Super Game will be capable of delivering lifetime sales of at least 100 billion yen ($672 million).
Writing in the company’s integrated report for 2022, which was released alongside its latest fiscal results, Sega Sammy CEO and group president Haruki Satomi outlined plans to create hit titles that “represent Japan,” and said that developing a Super Game will help it achieve that goal on a global scale.
“The ultimate goal in the Super Game strategy is to create a game so revolutionary that it attracts far more active users than any of the Group’s games to date. One key to achieving this goal is whether we can draw together a large community, involving not only players but also streamers who stream the game and viewers who watch their videos,” said Satomi.
“That kind of community expands and further develops game content, adding value to the game that is unimagined by developers, and sparking a broader movement—which can then draw in even more users and grow the game’s presence dramatically.”
In the medium term, Sega intends to generate earnings growth by strengthening the global branding of existing franchises such as Sonic, Persona, and Total War.
As for how the company is currently performing, according to its fiscal results for the six months ended September 30, 2022, consolidated net sales increased by 11.3 percent year-on-year to 150 billion yen and profit declined by 19.9 percent to 9.6 billion yen.
Within Sega’s Entertainment Contents business, which houses its video game operations, net sales totalled 116.6 billion yen, an increase on the 107.4 billion it delivered over the same period last year.
Digging into those results, Sega said that its video game business performed “steadily as a whole,” although full game unit sales dropped to 10.1 million units from 14 million units year-on-year.
“In the consumer area, the market environment for the game market on a global scale continues major changes as platforms expand and diversify with the digitization of game contents and services including diversifying revenue opportunities through packaged sales, download content sales, free-to-play games, subscription services, etc., as well as prolonged sales period,” commented Sega, weighing in on its video game business.
“Although the recent market trends seem to be cooling down due to the impact of changes in consumer behavior following the normalization of social and economic activities, there has been a growing expectation of the continued revitalization and growth of the game market on a global scale in the future.”
Looking ahead, Sega expects to deliver net sales of 375 billion yen and profits of 28 billon yen by the end of the current fiscal year on March 31, 2023