Sega Accidentally Shared 6 Years Of Game Sales Data With A Big Surprise

SEGA's fiscal year 25 ended at the end of March of this calendar year, and the long-lived game publisher posted up its financial results in May. While looking over them, ResetEra forum user "--R" noticed that one of the documents, on a page redacted with a large grey box, contained sales information for a selection of popular SEGA games dating back to 2020. The data is interesting and reveals some important trends about the publisher's products:


Topping the charts is Atlus' Persona 5 Royal, a turn-based JRPG with a heavy dose of anime aesthetics. If you needed any example to make the case for anime's popularity among gamers, here it is. The game's sales started strong, tapered off in FY21 and FY22, but then during FY23 the game hit the Xbox and PC platforms, seeing a sales surge that outstripped even the original PlayStation 4 exclusive release by nearly double, and sales have remained strong since then. This data doesn't include the original PS3 and PS4 releases from 2016, meaning that lifetime sales for Persona 5 have probaly exceeded 10 million units.


Just below that are a couple of Sonic the Hedgehog franchise games: Sonic Frontiers and Team Sonic Racing. The presence of Team Sonic Racing near the top of this chart is surprising considering its tepid reaction from critics, but when you think about it, kart racers are popular and accessible to a wide audience. Sonic Frontiers, on the other hand, is the latest main-line Sonic series title, and it takes the blue hedgehog into an open world for the first time. With a more mature story and heavy spectacle fighter elements alongside the traditional platforming, Sonic Frontiers forged a new path for Sonic games, and it's clear that the formula was successful. It will be interesting to see where Sonic goes next, as a franchise.


The Total War series from British developer Creative Assembly (CA) ventured into ancient China for the first time with Total War: Three Kingdoms, a title that was predictably popular in China itself. It's arguably surprising that it took CA this long to tackle the Three Kingdoms period given that era's popularity in games (e.g. Romance of the 3 Kingdoms, Dynasty Warriors) as well as the fact that the very first Total War game, Shogun: Total War, was set in Asia already.

These are the highest sales ever for a Total War title, but this game was abandoned prematurely by Creative Assembly with little post-release support, and that definitely soured some of the fanbase. Also on this chart is Total War: Warhammer III which had similar issues, particularly surrounding the buggy launch and a controversy over DLC pricing; it's possible these problems contributed to the weak tail after reasonably strong initial sales.


The Yakuza series is now known as the "Like a Dragon" series—a direct translation of the Japanese name, "Ryu ga Gotoku". The last three games have all been critical darlings despite fans grumbling about re-used assets and reycled content. That's understandable in the case of a gaiden (read: spinoff) game, like "The Man Who Erased His Name", but may have been a factor in the somewhat middling sales of Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth. Yakuza: Like a Dragon is another game that sees a sizable bump in sales after an initial exclusivity period; the pick-up in sales in FY 24 is likely due to deep discounting on Steam and elsewhere.


As an old-school SEGA fan, it's disappointing to see what's missing from this chart: classic franchises like Phantasy Star, the Shining series, the Virtua lineup, and SEGA's arcade classics, such as OutRun and Golden Axe. SEGA does have new games on the way from its classic franchises; at The Game Awards in 2023, the company unveiled "Power Surge", a branding initiative surrounding five upcoming games from the Shinobi, Streets of Rage, Crazy Taxi, Golden Axe, and Jet Set Radio franchises.


The Shinobi game, known as Shinobi: Art of Vengeance, is actually slated for release on August 29th of this year. A 2D side-scrolling platform action title in the "Metroidvania" genre, it looks pretty amazing, even if it may not necessarily have that much in common with the classic arcade Shinobi game. Meanwhile, the other titles all appear to be 3D reboots of the classic properties, based on the little information SEGA has released.


There's also a new Virtua Fighter title, tentatively titled "new VIRTUA FIGHTER," in development right now by SEGA and Ryu ga Gotoku studio. There's not much to go on yet, but what SEGA has showed of the game is visually exciting and gives hope for the return of the only true competitor to Tekken in the "technical 3D fighter" genre. Notably, this new game is confirmed to include a full story mode, which will be a first for the series. Producer Riichiro Yamada emphasizes that "innovation" and "reality" are core themes for the game; we're eager to see if it stands worthy of the "Virtua" namesake.

For many years now, SEGA has seemed content to plod along, publishing relatively few games while allowing its fan-favorite properties to languish in obscurity. Now that the funds from the company's in-person attractions and arcade amusements have largely dried up, it seems like SEGA is once again taking game development and publishing seriously. Here's hoping that the company's new takes on classic titles don't end up as slimy shovelware seeking to cash in on nostalgia rather than beloved new releases in storied franchises.