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Sega's gaming biz loses $77 million

Parent company Sega Sammy's sales, profits tumble as games biz misses all expectations; Captain America sells 450,000 as Rise of Nightmares scares up 200,000 sold.

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Not even Captain America could save Sega's bottom line. Parent company Sega Sammy today reported slumping sales and profits in its financial results for the first half of the fiscal year, with the game division falling notably short of expectations.

Captain America sold 450,000 copies in a little over two months on shelves.
Captain America sold 450,000 copies in a little over two months on shelves.

From April through September, Sega Sammy posted total sales of ¥152.6 billion ($2 billion), down nearly 30 percent year-over-year. Net profits were also down sharply for the publisher, off 84 percent from the previous year's first half to finish at ¥3.9billion ($50 million).

Stripping away Sega Sammy's pachinko and arcade machines and entertainment centers, the consumer business division that includes Sega's PC and console operations was also down. First-half sales sank nearly 14 percent to ¥33.4 billion ($428 million), while the segment posted an operating loss of ¥6 billion ($77 million).

The multiplatform movie tie-in Captain America: Super Soldier was the company's best-selling new release for the July-September quarter, racking up 450,000 copies sold in Europe and the US. The Xbox 360 Kinect-exclusive Rise of Nightmares was the company's next-biggest international new release, selling 200,000 copies worldwide. The Japan-exclusive PSP management sim J-League Pro Soccer Club Tsukurou 7 rounded out the company's major releases, also moving 200,000 copies.

On a larger scale, the publisher missed its sales forecasts on every platform. Game sales for the Nintendo 3DS were particularly disappointing, as the publisher had told investors to expect nine Sega games to combine for sales of half a million copies by the end of September. In that time frame, the publisher actually shipped just two games for the system, with combined sales of 30,000 copies.

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beny_pimpster

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not beingrude or anything but the 3ds games they provided currently aint my drift plus ths is what they get for not bringing valkyria chronicles 3 on states side (karma :D)

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SillyMushrooms

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Come on Sega if you just release a new Sonic game you'll make more money.

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Orion_Pimpdaddy

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How do you reply to a comment?

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Franzkill

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What kinda annoys me is that another Otogi game isn't being made. Surely after the huge success of 'Dark Souls' From Software wouldn't mind revisiting the series. :)

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ultracool374

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Hey, Sega, how about releasing the Phantasy Star remakes in the USA? I would have purchased a brand new copy of each one of them!!! This Phantasy Star Online crap is not the same!! You have no sympathy from me for losing money!

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DS-man

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Hopfuly Sonic Generations will put them back up! It looks freaking awesome

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regix416_basic

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How about going for more conventional stuff like a COMPLETE Shining Force 3, a new Skies of Arcadia or maybe even a NEW PS3/360 Valkyria Chronicles huh? The PSP was not a good move, I grant you, so try again. This time, make the games for the PS3... the way they should've been in the first place. Vanquish 2 might be a good move too. Or what about a NEW Golden Axe that's more like the original. You could make a REALLY GOOD 2.5D remake of the original game if you wanted to. I'd even LOVE to see a Macross Frontier game or two. Hmmm... we'd LOVE more Saturn titles on PSN and XBLA please. Panser Dragon Trilogy and ALL of the Working Designs co-released stuff would be nice too. Please?

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Kemutsemu

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Honestly, they're hemorrhaging money because there aren't enough people that are ignorant of the general quality of their go-to games (movie tie-ins, of couse) left in the world. They're going to end up like Silicon Knights if they don't do something different and successful.

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lightkemuk

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stop do superhero game make something different such as vanquish......

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Dogeatr00

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Where is Otogi 3 and Shenmue 3 and Panzer Dragoon RPG 2??? Even Shinobi 2, for crying out loud. Who wants Rise of Nightmares and all the movie tie-ins? They have great potential... utilize it!!!

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X-RS

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WHAT?!? That sucks. Sega has been publishing GREAT tittles. (Well maybe not rise of nightmares)

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aussiemuscle

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@eliebaz, i'm sure after saturn and dreamcast, sega aren't in any hurry to get back into the console market.

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Marscaleb

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Dear Sega: Try making a game that is more fun than those Sonic games you have been churning out.

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ZeroX91

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If they would just revive Phantasy Star Online and say charge 10$ a month they would make back the money easy, I miss the sega of my childhood.

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eliebaz

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Sega should revive the megadrive greatest machine in history, good times playing sonic, and many great games it brings tears to my eyes to see a great company at losses

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chilly-chill

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Make another Madworld game, I'm still cleaning the blood stains off my wii.

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blackace

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I wonder what those 2 DS games were. Where's Shenmue 3, Jet Set Radio 3 and Valkyria Chronicles 1-3 for the XBox 360?

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Shadowmax889

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Jokes aside this is happening with every Japanese company. The major loses are because of the devaluation of the Yen and that exposes them more to report bigger loses if they are having a bad year just like Nintendo. Sony is also having problems with their stock value pluming 50% this year since January.

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Shadowmax889

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OMG THEY ARE DOOMED NOW THEY WILL BECOME 3° PARTY DEVELOPERS ONLY!!!!!!!!!!...... oh wait

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LiveandLedZep

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Make another bayonetta already!!

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chilly-chill

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Wasn't Madworld a sega game? Cause I loved that game lol

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MasterTheHero

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Ever since Sega stopped making consoles they just have been very unstable with their games. You've got great games published by them such as Rome Total War, and then you've got crappy games like Ironman or Hulk. Sega needs to just focus on making quality games rather than trying to make a bang for their buck on movie licensed games which always suck.

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megakick

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Vanquish and Bayonette was made by the same studio so Sega should keep Sonic Team and Platium Games dump the rest.

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tbodine

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Bring back Streets of Rage!

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demonic_85

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@Son_of_Bmore I know especially after the crappy support they've had for some of their recent games. Renegade Ops was delayed 1.5 months on PC and still released with game breaking bugs. Unbelievable.

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Son_of_Bmore

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I really don't know how Sega is still around

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mboettcher

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While its true that Sega does make a lot of mediocre games, let's not forget as objio24 points out that, they have made some nearly perfect games like Bayonetta, some games with amazing gameplay, but subpar story's and voiceacting like Vanquish, and also brilliant but flawed/incomplete games like Shenmue 2. They have the talent in there somewhere, and need to figure out how to polish the good ones and drop the mediocre ones if they want to survive.

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pszone

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Sega Will be in big trouble if sonic game wont sell this week. I think they should realse new ideas and sega classics more for psn and xboxlive acrade. Nindendo lost a lot money and sega has as well. I agree sega a gd company. So sega if you put a lot old classics i will buy them and aslo jet set radio.

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Objio24

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So sad .... Sega was a great company that make great games like Sonic adventure 1 and 2 Shemue House of the Dead Bayoneta Vanquish Nights Phantasy Star Yakuza Valkyria Chronicles Crazy Taxi Sega as a company (for me was better than nintendo) but things like this happens :S the man who create sonic is no more in the company then they are making a lot of bad sonic games now and the company is just making crap games trying to get money and no thinking in make just a good game so sad RIP SEGA i still love sonic anyway (old sonic games and sonic in smash brother brawl)

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tatinhawk

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They need Bayonetta2 and a good Sonic game but, since we haven't received that since Sonic Adventure 2 and Bayonetta2 hasn't been announced.. well I think that this trend is going to continue...

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CookiemanxD

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HAH! They just need to make a Rome ll... That would save them :3

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koorkoor

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They'll probably try to fix it with Iron Man 3, Thor 2 and Sonic 29

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ZoTrAcK

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I wasn't aware of these games even existed!

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bluespire1

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Bayonetta

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koorkoor

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If they had focused on bringing the actually-good franchises to consoles (VC 2&3 on ps3) instead of wasting resources on crappy marvel movie tie-ins... They deserved it

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gamingfrendly

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sega = medcore at best

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Maccusha

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Sony killed Sega in 2002!

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deactivated-60156c31f349f

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I'm surprised that that many people actually bought the captain america game

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franzito

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Like Nintendo, SEGA ventured in average game projects over the years and, well, losses are a consequence of it! Because when they just think about profits, quality goes down the drain. SEGA is just another company failing to impress and maintain itself thanks to the blindness of the Capitalism...

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Crystall3d

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just three "gameplay" videos and a "badass" concept trailer is sufficient, good gamers will eventually find out about it and "spread the word" for them im sure...

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Crystall3d

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IMO they can just skip the marketing part and focus on the game it self, i.e."demon souls".

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Crystall3d

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Sega killed themselves by going the "mediocre way" they should keep their quality for the hardcore instead of 5 lackluster titles a year.

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Yorkshire_Daz

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Make good games.

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cr8ive

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It's a bad sign from Sega if their best selling new release is Captain America ... C'mmon SEGA! We expected a lot more from you guys! EDIT: As for the last good SEGA game I played... Yakuza 4 of course!

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Zenstrive

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Microsoft killed Sega

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ecurl143

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Absolutely Slagar. This seems to be a symptom of the gaming industry these days. If developers are only given half the normal production time to make a game, you're going to get a half arsed title and if you're doing that consistently as a publisher, you're going to go under at some point. Only a few games manage to grab the resources and time to deliver a great looking game with a great experience. Battlefield 3 is probably the most recent game to demonstrate that - I would hazzard a guess that EA's marketing budget for that game alone far exceeds many an entire games development budget.

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Slagar

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It all starts at the top. They have to be willing to invest the time and money in their designers and programmers. They have to make careful decisions about what games to invest in, and then see those games through to the end. They need to invest in marketing their games properly, so that people actually give a f***. If they don't, they will never reach greatness again. They will continue releasing half-baked games over and over again until they go out of business. It all starts at the top.

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smoke_dog_4ever

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If they're going to release sub-par games all the time, the least they could do is put them at a sub-par price at around $30-40, but even then, I really don't think these games would sell. Comic book movie tie-ins are rarely good and they rarely sell well. You'd think after so many bombs of comic book movie tie-in video games that they'd just stop making them.

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Scorchstar

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Sega died when their consoles died.

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DAMSOG

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crap+crap=crap it's simple really.

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