And a poor showing by Sonic Boom
Creative Assembly’s Alien: Isolation was one of the most well-received games of 2014, but “well-received” seemingly doesn’t cut it for its publisher. Sega released its year-end financial results today, and in it expresses disappointment at Alien: Isolation‘s sales, along with the packaged game field as a whole.
Despite moving 2.11 million copies, Sega calls Alien: Isolation‘s performance weak. It pins this shortcoming on the nebulous factor of “harsh market environment.” Of Sega’s six major titles released in 2014, Isolation did the best by a large margin. The other games were Football Manager 2015 (810,000 sold), Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric and Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal (combined 620,000 sold), Ryu ga Gotoku 0: Chikai no Basho (380,000 sold), and Persona 4: The Ultimax Ultra Suplex Hold (280,0000 sold). It’s worth noting that Sega’s packaged game sales saw a year-over-year increase of 1.23 million units.
The Japanese publisher may be a bit discouraged by console games, but it’s high on its mobile and PC downloads department. Sega offered the performance of games such as Phantasy Star Online 2 and PuyoPuyo!! Quest as proof that this segment of its consumer business branch “remained strong.”
All of that resulted in Sega’s videogame segment seeing a revenue increase of 11.2 percent over the previous year. However, the company as a whole was saddled with a $94 million annual loss after having a profitable fiscal 2013.
Consolidated Financial Statements, Appendix of Consolidated Financial Statements [Sega Sammy Holdings]
