Despite the gaming unit of Sega seeing a rise in revenue, the company posts a pricey loss of $63.5 million for the quarter. Sega Sammy, parent company to developers Sega, reported that the gaming gains couldn’t offset the overall loss for the company.
The company are down in revenue and profit from last year, which is bad news all round. Sega posted a revenue of $425 million (¥52.9 billion), which is a shocking 41.2 percent decrease compared to last year, where they earned $723 million (¥90 billion). Their profits went from good to awful, with the company taking a sharp downturn from $41 million (¥5.1 billion) profit to a $63.5 million (¥5.1 billion) loss for the quarter. It doesn’t take some serious number crunching to see that the difference between this year and last year is ridiculously bad.
So why is that?
Sega have said that the downturn is due to a number of factors, including the economy.
‘The economy still remained in the condition requiring further time for full recovery due to uncertainty towards a downswing in overseas economies arising from factors such as the slowdown of growth in the economies of emerging countries and European debt crisis,’ Sega said.
Compared to the rest of the company, the gaming sector fared a little better. However, Sega went on to say that the profits in digital games weren’t enough to stop the effect of the ‘shrinking’ packaged game business. The net sales for Sega’s gaming division, Entertainment Contents Business, increased 4.1 percent from last year. Although they still recorded a $5.9 million (¥739 million) loss, that’s less than the loss they suffered during the same period last year.
The earnings report follows an apology from Sega games Executive Haruki Satomi, who said, ‘Sega in the 90s was known for its brand, but after that, we’ve lost trust, and we’re left with nothing but reputation … We’d like to win back the trust and become a brand once again.’