Sega's Financial Results Bolstered By Sonic Origins And Pachinko Machines

Rushed, broken patchjobs and gambling ...Modern video game industry in a nutshell right there.

Won't stop until people stop buying all this unfinished garbage. Nostalgia tends to make you blind.

Wow, Tails looks off his face in that photo.

Anyways, this is hopeful and I am still excited for Frontiers

Arcade Stadium has obviously done alright for Capcom that we got a sequel to it. Hopefully SEGA have taken note of this. As good as Capcom's arcade games are, SEGA's are even better.

The only SEGA Arcade game I have ever played was MaiMai, a rhythm Arcade game with washing machine design and using touch screen + physical buttons to play.

Is that only me that would not expect Sega to sell 5M+ games in 3 month's...

@Anti-Matter not even sega rally, Virtua tennis, virtua stricker, etc.?

@Balta666
No, I don't even play games like SEGA rally, Virtua Fighter, etc from SEGA.
I'm a Rhythm gamer (playing DDR, Para Para Paradise, DrumMania, Pop'n Music, Taiko no Tatsujin, etc)
Those games (SEGA Rally, Virtua Fighter, etc) only cater to mainstream adult male gamer while I have completely different interest, more like female gamer despite I am an adult man.

I have ever for once trying Midnight Tunes Arcade by Bandai Namco and I will never want to play that game anymore because it was so damn boring to play racing game as smooth as possible without drama from items to smack onto opponents like Mario Kart.
I don't like the taste of being adult gamer like that. Gimme something kiddie, crazy, unusual but still interesting enough for me then I will digging the games.

@Anti-Matter How do you explain the female, non mainstream gamers who enjoy those games, lol. You shouldn't stereotype.

@Anti-Matter I'm sure you would enjoy Space Channel 5. I'm not into rhythm games myself but I did enjoy that one on the Dreamcast.

@OorWullie
SpaceChannel 5 doesn't look like a proper rhythm game with button based to tap.
It looks like a game you have to press the coresponded buttons combo within time limit after you listen the instruction.
I prefer Rhythm games with timing based gameplay like DDR, Beatmania IIDX, Pop'n Music, MaiMai, Taiko no Tatsujin.

You know it's sad when pachinko machines are your largest income. Sega is at a point of no return. I smell an acquisition coming along at some point. The closing of their arcade stores in Japan was the first sign of that.

@BinaryMessiah Bad take. SEGA is definitely one of the more successful companies in the industry in recent years. They just had a quiet year in releases so far, but the fact that they are still in the red is a great sign. SEGA would be losing money if they didn’t acknowledge that running some of the biggest arcades in Japan is a losing battle.

@Vix
Although we know that companies have been "lazy" and "hasty" to have games made quickly, that responsibility is not entirely theirs, also, and sadly, we have caused them to do so.
Where before, people could wait for a game to be ready and complete by its release date, nowadays, people now prefer games just NOW, yes, NOW; games that are ready to play no matter if they are incomplete or with bugs, that they be playable, is what many people want and the mobile games market is where that has been pleased with so many shovelware games or even garbage, but, I repeat, it is what many people want and that "invoice" is received by the big companies that, unable to please impatient people or have complete and ready games, decide to use, "what has saved them", patches via internet download, that has allowed people to forgive that and continue making games like that, incomplete and flawed...

Now, the another problem is the gambling, and, in short answer, yes, people prefer much, gambling games, for this, there are many games with loot boxes...
the addictiveness of these games is really worrying....

I loved Sonic Origins. It’s a really solid way to play the classic Sonic games. And it’s now the definitive way to play Sonic 2 after they fixed the Tails AI (which was also broken in the mobile remaster).

That said, I have a grudge against pachinko as it’s what drove Konami away from making more AAA games.
It’s already been seven years (damn, it’s that long) since their very last AAA release: Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain.
Konami cut all ties with Kojima to make pachinko and mobile games and look where they are now.

I am happy with Kojima leaving Konami but not in a way where he would never touch his past ever again. If Kojima became independent, he should still have ties with Konami that allow him to oversee any of the IPs he started there.

Konami doesn’t even care about Metal Gear, if they do, they could’ve at least released a massive complete collection for modern consoles and PC, alongside mobile ports of the MSX games, the AC!D games, Portable Ops, and Peace Walker.

I would hate to see the day SEGA becomes the new Konami. I don’t want to see Sonic Frontiers become their Phantom Pain.

SEGA can consider themselves so lucky, that they invited such a popular character, that fans are willing to buy just everything with Sonic on it.

@SakuraHaruka Very true. Sad, but true. It's hard to change the culture itself, of course ...

@Mauzuri @BartoxTharglod

The collection isn't broken, but you'd have to have your head in the sand to not acknowledge that it has many problems, many of which aren't trivial.

How about all the graphics being slightly distorted? Sonic the Hedgehog crashing when collecting the sixth Chaos Emerald with Sonic & Tails? Muffled background music? Inconsistent music volume? Losing all your Chaos Emeralds in the middle of Sonic 3 & Knuckles?

The list goes on, and they're being documented on Sonic Retro: https://forums.sonicretro.org/index.php?threads/sonic-origins-known-issues.41063/

Even the latest patch notes acknowledge many of the problems by fixing them: http://www.benoitren.be/switchpatchnotes/sonicorigins.html

I still can't believe I bought Sonic Origins. I'm such a clown for actually supporting this practice. 🤡 At least I've learned my lesson now.

@BartoxTharglod

Crashes do make for an unfinished game. I remember it being a big deal when Phantasy Star Collection on GBA had a crash bug, because it was rather rare. These days? Nobody bats an eye.

For bugs, it depends. Older games did have some quirks, most notably with their collision systems (which even to this day, is not a solved problem). But the amount and severity of those present in Sonic Origins are evidence enough that the game was released too early. Actually, I don't even need to use that evidence, because the developers of the Sonic 3 & Knuckles part said as much themselves.

It can be argued that people buying unfinished products is perpetuating the practice of releasing unfinished (and, at times, broken) games.

@BartoxTharglod I did not say the mere existence of bugs meant an unfinished game. I said it depends.

Clearly you didn't take a serious look at the lists I posted, because it's more than "some". If you think crash bugs and things like losing all Chaos Emeralds are trivial, I don't know what to tell you.

I've already explained why games' collision detection never was perfect, and you haven't brought anything else up, so Sonic the Hedgehog 2 does not count as a buggy game.

Note that I'm mainly talking about console games here. PC games like Ultima IX are a whole other can of worms (in part because patching was possible).

This practice of unfinished, bug-ridden games is still relatively new to console gaming. Since about 2014, in fact. Before that, day one patches were far from a common thing. You know why? Because releasing patches cost money. Now submitting them to the platform holder is free. If you're going to claim games were always equally buggy that's revisionism.

Clearly you have no interest in discussing this is good faith because you not only create a strawman re: bug-free, but the very first thing I said in this discussion is that Sonic Origins is not broken, yet you keep bringing it up.

@Kyloctopus Being in the red is a good thing? How is not having profit any good? THAT'S a bad take. I'm pretty sure Sega is one of the least profitable companies right now. They're nowhere near the profit earnings of Rockstar or even Sony.

@BinaryMessiah Got my lingo wrong there, apologies. They are in the black, as the article proves. They had nearly nothing on the docket beyond ports and found decent success, despite mass investment in the future. They’re in a good place and they’re sure to have several hits throughout this fiscal year.