14 DAY TRIAL // SEGA, the creator of Sonic the Hedgehog, has announced having again lost money in the first quarter of the current fiscal year. The company has seen sales of 638.44 million dollars, which is a reduction of almost 20% over the same period in 2008, and the net reported loss has been 108.66 million dollars, which is about 16% of the overall sales. During the same time in 2008, it also reported a loss.
The Conduit, the Nintendo Wii-based shooter created by High Voltage, was one of the titles for which SEGA had high hopes and which did not really deliver.
The game was released in the United States on June 23 and the NPD Group announced that it sold just 72,000 units until the end of the month. SEGA is saying that the title, which also appeared in July on other markets, sold 150,000 units until the end of the first financial quarter, on June 30. It's not clear whether the publisher is talking about the number of copies sold to retailers or directly to customers.
The company is also saying that it has sold about 790,000 units of Virtua Tennis 2009 on the PlayStation 3 from Sony, the Xbox 360 from Microsoft, the Nintendo Wii and the PC. The Wii home gaming console has been the platform on which the company sold most game units.
SEGA stated that “In the home video game software industry, growth in demand for software has leveled off in Japan and North America, due to the popularization of game platforms. Nevertheless, demand remains relatively firm in Europe.”
The publisher hopes that it will sell about 30 million videogames in 2009 and that it will manage to make a profit during the fiscal year. Unless it manages to make a good Sonic the Hedgehog game, the chances for that becoming reality are pretty slim.