Sega praises new releases after Sonic Frontiers tops 3.2 million sales

Sonic Frontiers has sold over 3.2 million copies since launching in November 2022 to help drive a net sales bump at publisher Sega.

Sega highlighted the milestone in its fiscal report for the year ended March 31, 2023, where it revealed that net sales in its Entertainment Contents segment rose by 19.9 percent year-on-year to 282.8 billion yen ($2 billion). Ordinary income increased by 11.7 percent to 41.1 billion yen ($302 million) over that same period.

The Japanese company said the "strong performance" of new titles such as Sonic Frontiers and Persona 5 Royal (Remaster) contributed to that uptick, and also spotlighted the performance of freemium titles such as Project SEKAI COLORFUL STAGE! feat. Hatsune Miku and Phantasy Star Online 2 New Genesis.

Offering more context, Sega said that sales of new titles totalled 10.1 million units, an increase on the 8.7 million units it shifted during the previous fiscal year. Catalog sales, meanwhile, were described as "sluggish" by the company, totaling 17.8 million units in FY2023 compared with 18.4 million units in FY2022.

Sega Software Sales

Overall, the company delivered software sales of 27.9 million units, which represents a small increase on the 27.2 million copies it sold last year.

In what's something of an interesting aside, Sega revealed that Sonic titles sold a combined 8.15 million units during the fiscal year, meaning that Sonic Frontiers, with those 3.2 million sales, accounted for almost 40 percent of franchise sales over the past 12 months.

Looking ahead, the company expects an increase in sales of new titles and stable earnings from free-to-play projects to help its Entertainment Contents business generate net sales of 305 billion yen by the end of the next fiscal year on March 31, 2024. Operating income is forecasted to hit 43.5 billion yen.

Notably, Sega is also forecasting full game software sales of 34.5 million units by the end of FY2024, and believes new releases will account for 14.1 million of those sales.