Sega says yeah you're all real nice about our games—but you sure ain't buying them

Sega Sammy has released a new set of financial results, along with a Q&A explaining some of the finer points, but the long-and-short of it is: you all say you like our games, so why aren't you buying more of them? Amidst some truly incredible corporate jargon (what's a "B2B Omnichannel Solution Provider"?) Sega says that the "high valuations," i.e.the review scores and user feedback that some of its recent titles have received, simply didn't translate into increased sales, and that things are "stagnant."

Over the course of 2025 Sega released a bunch of critically acclaimed titles, including Virtua Fighter 5: R.E.V.O., Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii, Two Point Museum, Yakuza 0: Director's Cut, Puyo Puyo Tetris 2S, Raidou Remastered: The Mystery of the Soulless Army,

Maimai DX CiRCLE, Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds, and Shinobi: Art of Vengeance. Sega subsidiary Atlus, meanwhile, released Metaphor: ReFantazio, which was nothing less than a critical darling.

On the less upbeat side of things, Rovio has been on a consistent downward trend ever since Sega bought it in April 2023. The company has written off $200 million of its $776 million acquisition because "profitability of the business had fallen below the initial forecast"—in other words, maybe just making tonnes of Angry Birds games isn't the brilliant strategy some thought.

Sega is a little hazy about exactly which of its 2025 games are depressing its executives, but does specifically mention Sonic CrossWorlds Racing as having sold around one million units, which is apparently below forecast. It also acknowledges that some users weren't happy with Football Manager 26 at launch, and says it is committing resources to both titles in efforts to improve their sales and reception.

"While the development costs per title for our mainstay titles are lower compared to so-called AAA titles in the industry, we recognize that our strength lies in the relatively high acclaim we receive for quality," says Sega Sammy president Haruki Satomi. "On the other hand, we also recognize that such high evaluations have yet to translate into a further increase in unit sales."

What can be done? The power of marketing, my friend! "While continuing to hone our development capabilities—the source of our strength—we believe there is still significant room for improvement and earnings upside in our 'power to sell,' namely our marketing and sales mechanisms. As explained earlier, we are currently undergoing reforms in this area to realize a scale-up in sales.”

Sega is further reviewing its corporate structure in an effort to have a more effective globalised publishing operation. None of this is especially rocket science but, outside of the Yakuza series, Sega did have a long period where a lot of its big-hitters were coming from its European studios in particular.

It's not all doom and gloom. Sega says existing titles "performed as expected", that Sega Football Club Champions is off to a strong start and should benefit from this year's World Cup, its amusement machines are doing better than ever, and it is enjoying "record" character licensing revenue. Good old Sonic always delivers when it comes to the merch, at least.

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