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Sonic Lost World Moves 640k, SEGA Gets Lots Of Rings

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Now that the fires caused by Sonic Boom‘s unveiling have begun to simmer, SEGA’s financial report reveals Sonic Lost World did okay. The combination of both the Wii U and 3DS versions shipped a total of 640,000 units by Dec. 31, 2013, marking it as the company’s second most successful boxed title behind Football Manager 14.

The company noted however that, in the nine-month span of packaged software shipments, the consumer business side still did not return expected total sales numbers due to “a harsh market environment,” yielding only 6.31 million total games moved. Favorable performance was indicated for Phantasy Star Online 2 and mobile games such as PUYOPUYO Quest and CHAIN CHRONICLE.

The bulk of SEGA’s gain came not only from its Pachinko machines, but from selling investment securities and non-current assets.  This garnered them a whopping 44.3 billion yen, or about $434 million. As a reminder, this is after factoring their 14 billion yen expense to purchase Index back in November.

While this may not seem like the most exciting news, it is at least good to see SEGA floating on some decent cash. Given the Wii U’s humdrum state the last year, Lost World‘s low return isn’t surprising. Perhaps Boom will prove more successful? Let’s just hope it includes a cameo from our new favorite purple mascot, Zazz.

[Source: SEGA-Sammy (1) (2)]

Game News

Sonic Colors Sends Sega Into The Black

Players agree: the colors felt so right.

Despite some rather mixed reviews across the Internet, that was not enough to deter sales of Sonic Colors. The title took off and never looked back, selling 1.87 million titles combined for the Wii and the Nintendo DS.

On the financial side, Sega Sammy posted sales of ¥310.1 billion ($3.77 billion), up nearly nine percent year-over-year, for its first three quarters. The company’s profits, however, were through the roof, as net income more than doubled to ¥36.82 billion ($448 million) thanks in part to strong sales of pachinko machines.

However, results were mixed in the consumer business division, which includes the home console video game division, as sales were down more than 19 percent to ¥66.9 billion ($814 million). Operating profits for the division still ignored the slip, doubling to reach ¥2.8 billion ($34 million)

Other top sellers for the company included Platinum Games’ shooter Vanquish, selling 820,000 copies between both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, and Football Manager 2011, at 690,000 copies sold on the PC and PSP in Europe and the U.S. alone.