Sega announced its financial results for the three-month period which started on April 1 and ended on June 30, 2024.
According to the documents shared by the publisher, sales for the whole company were 104.7 billion yen, down from 108.2 billion yen in the same period last year.
Operating income was 19.3 billion yen, down from 22.7 billion yen in the same period last year.
That being said, Sega mentions that it has adopted “adjusted EBITDA” as the management indicator, and that would be 25.8 billion for income compared to 24.7 billion last year, changing the drop into growth.
If you’re wondering, adjusted EBITDA is Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization with the removal one-time, irregular, and non-recurring operations, which are said to be misleading.
That being said, Sega describes this as a “steady start” and better than expected, especially since the results went against a prior year comparable that saw the release of Smart Pachislot Hokuto No Ken, described as a “huge hit.”
We hear that the company’s sales were mainly generated by new full games and some older ones in the consumer area of the Entertainment Contents Business (basically, console games) and a steady performance of the Pachislot and Pachinko Machines Business.
Looking at the Entertainment Contents business, which includes games and takes the lion’s share of the company’s revenue, sales were 72.5 billion yen, up from 54.1 billion yen in the same period last year.
Operating income was 11.8 billion yen, up from 4.3 billion yen last year. This is seen as a steady start and exceeded expectations due to the positive impact from foreign exchange and strong sales of DLC.
Sales of Full Games increased (15.2 billion yen compared to 11.0 billion yen) year-on-year but were slightly below expectations. Another element that increased sales was the recording of these coming from the recently acquired Rovio.
Sales of new Full Games increased to 3.9 billion yen from 2.5 billion yen, while sales of older games released in previous fiscal years increased to 11.2 billion yen from 8.5 billion yen.
Sales of Free to Play decreased year-on-year to 11 billion yen from 12.5 billion yen.
We also hear that revenues from the Sonic movie and animation were “strong.”
Looking at the forecast for the full fiscal year, Sega expects higher sales and profits compared to the previous fiscal year as there are major new games coming in Q3 and Q4. These include Sonic X Shadow Generations, Metaphor: ReFantazio, Football Manager 25, and more.
Sega provides more details mentioning that Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance has shipped 500,000 copies in three days. On top of that, Vanillaware’s Unicorn Overlord and Atlus’s Persona 5 Royal Remaster (which were released in the previous fiscal year) enjoyed “favorable performance.”
If you’d like to read more about gaming industry financial results, several have already been announced and we have dedicated reports, including Capcom, Koei Tecmo, Microsoft, Electronic Arts, Konami, Nintendo, and Square Enix.
