In a Q&A during its recent earnings report, Sega has revealed that it will be releasing fewer new titles in 2025. It does, however, expect its revenue to be stable thanks to repeat sales of its games, as well as revenue from its free-to-play games in the fiscal year.
“The plan is currently being formulated, but we expect the volume of new titles in Full Game to be lower than this fiscal year,” said Sega. “On the other hand, we expect continuous revenue contribution from repeat sales of new titles in Full Game this fiscal year and full-scale revenue contribution from new titles in F2P.”
For the sake of context, when Sega says “Full Game”, it is referring to its major releases that aren’t free-to-play. This would include its releases like Metaphor: ReFantazio or the upcoming Shinobi: Art of Vengeance.
Sega also spoke about its plans for investment into its subsidiaries like Atlus, Ryu Ga Gotoku Studios, and Sonic Team. The company plans on expanding and strengthening these companies through hiring new talent, as well as through mergers and acquisitions.
“Atlus is an important studio for us to expand Japanese IPs overseas and we think it is necessary to strengthen it, and the studios involved in the Sonic and Like a Dragon IPs are also short of staff, and we are looking to reinforce personnel through additional hiring and M&A,” said Sega.
The company also revealed that it had sold almost 20 million copies of its newer releases up to December 31, 2024. In the first three quarters of the fiscal year, Sega reported that 2 million copies of Sonic X Shadow Generations were sold, while Metaphor: ReFantazio sold around a million copies.
Its older titles have also been incredibly popular, with Persona 5 and Unicorn Overlord being among the games that were part of the 12 million sold copies of legacy releases.
With its library of IPs growing, Sega president and COO Shuji Utsumi had revealed in an interview that the company might get its own subscription service. He described the idea of a subscription service “very interesting”. Sega is seemingly “evaluating some opportunities” surrounding the idea.
The most recent Sega release has been Ryu Ga Gotoku Studios’ Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii. The game, available on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S, puts players in the shoes of an amnesiac Goro Majima who ends up getting involved with gangs of pirates around Hawaii.
Released back in February, Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii was launched alongside a new game plus mode added through its day one patch. Its launch was a successful one in Japan, selling more than 105,000 physical copies in the country. Out of these, 68,000 copies were for the PS5 version, while 36,000 copies were for the PS4 version.
Sega has also been working on bringing back some of its older franchises. Alongside the recently-revealed Shinobi: Art of Vengeance, the company has also confirmed that it is working on new Crazy Taxi and Jet Set Radio games as well.
