SEGA Posts Losses, Weakening Sales

SEGA has announced its financial results for the previous year, with its poor results said to be caused by the overall problems of the world economy, the constant decrease in demand for arcade games and the weak Japanese market, where videogame requests has leveled off.

The company says that it has a net loss of 239.26 million dollars, which is significantly smaller than the loss posted last year, which was twice as big. SEGA’s sales went down by 6.5% to reach the overall sum of 4.49 billion dollars for the fiscal year that ended on March 31.

The biggest earners for the publisher were titles like Sonic Unleashed, which was released towards the end of 2008, and Football Manager 2009, which was a hit with football lovers. Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games continued to be present in the charts, prompting the company to announce a sequel for it, focusing on the Winter Olympics.

SEGA has also cited games like Phantasy Star Portable for the PlayStation Portable and Yakuza 3 as being important to its line. Also, it has mentioned that other titles, which it has not named, have performed weakly. Amongst them, MadWorld and House of the Dead: Overkill, released at the end of 2008, saw limited sales in the United States in the initial months, despite being favorably reviewed.

It seems that the arcade business was not very successful in the last year, with 47 domestic entertainment centers closed down by the company and only six new ones opened. There were 322 centers opened at the end of the fiscal year.

SEGA is saying that it plans to have sales of 4.39 billion dollars in the coming year, down about 2%, while income will reach 156.82 million. It plans to release fewer titles and also to strengthen its distribution alliances in North America and in Europe.