Sega Sammy focuses on free-to-play as packaged game sales slump

Japanese company Sega Sammy reported a mild drop in profits in the last fiscal year compared to its previous year and poor sales of packaged games in its consumer business segment, spurring the company to pour more resources into launching mobile and free-to-play games in the coming year. The company reported that sales of boxed games like Total War: Rome II and Football Manager 2014 were disappointing, but took pains to highlight the favorable performance of digital games like Phantasy Star Online 2 and mobile games like Chain Chronicle. To that end the company plans to launch 43 new digital games in the coming fiscal year, 30 of which will be free-to-play titles. The company will also be working to convert properties that have traditionally been sold as packaged games to digital products. Looking ahead, the company claims it will "address the expanding market for new content for the field of digital game software," and streamline development efforts to focus on a smaller number of titles in an attempt to generate higher profits. For the fiscal year ended March 31, 2014, Sega Sammy recorded profits of 30.721 billion yen (~$302 million USD), down roughly 8.2 percent from the 33.46 billion yen (~$329 million USD) profit the company reported at the close of the previous fiscal year. The company reported net revenue of 378.01 billion yen (~$371 million USD), up roughly 17.6 percent from the 321.407 billion yen (~$316 million USD) it reported at the end of the 2013 fiscal year.