Akihabara News (Tokyo) — Even though it has been forced to ditch its line of Sega branded arcades, Sega Sammy is surviving the woes of the pandemic largely on the basis of brisk sales of video games.
In the nine month period between April-December 2021, the company’s digital entertainment segment brought in the cash, while its pachinko-pachislot segment, too, nearly recovered to pre-pandemic levels. The firm’s resorts segment, however, continued to struggle.
Consolidated net sales totaled ¥237 billion (US$2.48 billion), and ordinary profits of ¥34 billion (US$296 million).
This was largely due to its entertainment contents efforts: ¥178 billion (US$1.5 billion) of the sales, about 75%, came from this area.
The company highlighted the particular success of the video games Shin Megami Tensei V, the newest entry in this series in roughly eight years, Football Manager 2022, and Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania, which appeared on Nintendo Switch, among other platforms.
Commercial merchandise was also cited as a substantial contributor to sales.
Pachinko and pachislot machines contributed ¥51.8 billion (US$449 million) during the period. This was a 39% increase in sales from the previous year.
However, the company added a note of trepidation, stating “there are concerns about the impact from the emergence of the new variant of Covid-19.” (The report accounted for the period up to December 31 of last year, and so the impact of the Omicron wave is yet to be known.)
The resorts business is where Sega Sammy continues to stumble. Resorts accounted for only ¥6.6 billion (US$57 million) of the firm’s net sales, still operating at a significant loss of ¥4.6 billion (US$40 billion).
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