Sega's digital games business did not meet its forecasts for the last financial year.
That's according to the Japanese publishing giant's report for the 12 months ending March 31st, 2019, in which the company says that new releases didn't hit the mark critically and the popularity of its catalogue titles waning. There was an increased number of boxed game sales, though, with 23.4m units sold in FY18/19 versus the 17.3m the year before. Sega says this is down to back catalogue releases/
"Regarding the environment of the Entertainment Contents Business, in the field of digital game software, the competitive environment is further intensifying, with titles that capitalise on powerful IPs (Intellectual Properties), in addition to being high-quality products, take up the top spots in sales rankings," the company wrote.
"With regard to the packaged game software market, in the market for hardware of home video game consoles, expectations are rising, mainly in North America and Europe, for the expansion of the game software sales market due to the growing penetration of current-generation video game console hardware. In addition, game distribution platforms such as Steam are expanding in the PC games market."
Looking forward, Sega says it wants to make its digital games business more profitable, partially through changing up resources it allocates to the games side of its house.
"With regard to the Entertainment Contents Business, the Group will strive to improve profitability in the field of digital game software and to launch new titles in the packaged game software field," the firm wrote.
"In the field of digital game software, the Group will strive to optimise the number of titles in operation among existing titles for mobile devices and the number of new title launches, while striving to increase the rate of new titles that capitalise on IPs, which are expected to be more profitable. In addition, the Group aims to improve profitability by advancing resource allocation in the packaged game software field, etc. In the packaged game software field, the Group will further strengthen IP development for multiple devices in all regions as well as launching multiple new titles including titles that capitalise on IPs, such as the Official Video Games of the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020. At t
