While the brand of Sega will always mean a certain thing to those who grew up in the period when they were a platform holder, the company itself has changed quite significantly over the last several years. Right now, it seems that their overall fortunes are down, but it seems strong game performance is keeping them optimistic for the future.
The company reported their financial result for the fiscal year quarterly period going from April to December of 2020. Overall, their net sales were down 25.2% from last year, while operating income was down an even worse 51.8%. Entertainment Contents Division, which is what Sega’s games fall under, was also down, but fared much better as that only saw a drop of 10%. The biggest upside was ordinary income, which was up 106.8% from the previous year.
Despite the overall down nature of the last quarter, they did increase full-year forecast for both sales and profits. They believe that through the end of the rest of the fiscal year, which will end March 2021, that those strong sales will continue and that new games have sold well alongside older catalog titles selling at a steady pace. You can read the full report through here.
Like many companies, Sega was hit by the COVID pandemic, especially their arcade and pachinko divisions. Still, it seems video games are still going strong for them. The next game set to be released by the company is the PS5, Xbox Series X/S and Stadia version of Judgement on April 23rd.