The Sonic Franchise is undoubtedly one of the biggest heavy-weights of the gaming industry, its long history of games, films, and tv-shows makes the Bluehedghog as synonymous with gaming as Burger King to the fast food industry.
SEGA Sammy recently published their integrated report for 2022. Here the current CEO of the company Haruki Satomi revealed that the Sonic Franchise has just passed 1.5 billion units sold in Sales and Downloads this includes spinoffs, mobile releases, and more.
One should be aware that the number also includes downloads of free-to-play games of which, the franchise has seen considerable success in the mobile gaming market. Haruki Satomi mentioned that the recently released Sonic The Hedgehog 2 has seen massive success in the US, becoming the highest-grossing video game movie of all time, most likely increasing the number of downloads for mobile games.
Satomi stated that the goal would be to create more of these kinds of hits.
“I saw a local shopping mall in the States that was overflowing with Sonic merchandise. Those are the kind of hits we want to create, titles that represent Japan, and we want to see similar scenes all around the world demonstrating their huge popularity.”
Satomi continued to discuss the important role that Sonic plays for SEGA.
“For Sonic IP which stands at the center of SEGA’s IP strategy, which continues to grow its popularity in overseas markets, we are strategically developing a global mix of media to expand earnings opportunities,” Said Haruki Satomi.
The report is quite interesting to have some insight into current SEGA and where it is going as a company. The business plans on reaching Carbon neutrality by 2050 with one of the current goals being to completely phase out the use of gas vehicles. SEGA also plans on addressing the concerns of video game addictions through ongoing research on how to prevent such cases.
With the world still recovering from a heavy COVID hangover, Satomi touched on the impact that it had on it’s Arcade machine and resort business but also positively on the gain for the stay-at-home consumer market. SEGA Sammy is however on the rise now as the company has reported a 15% year-on-year growth.
“On top of ongoing brisk performance in the Consumer area, earnings in the Pachislot and Pachinko Machines Business and the Amusement Machine Sales area, which were hard hit by COVID-19, saw a turnaround in the fiscal year ended March 2022. Consolidated net sales were up 15.6% year on year to ¥320.9 billion.”
