Sega's Latest Investor Call Reveals Disappointment with the Past Year and a Change in Direction
Sega acknowledged that Shinobi: Art of Vengeance and Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds failed to meet financial expectations despite positive reviews, prompting the company to overhaul its marketing strategy and focus on influencer-based promotion.
Looking Back While Facing Forward
Last week, Sega held its investor call, which revealed new information about the company's performance. At the center of the discussion were two games the company launched during 2025: Shinobi: Art of Vengeance and Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds. Sega said that despite the overall positive reviews both games received, their financial performance did not meet the company's expectations and targets. According to Sega, these are examples that highlight a problem with how the company markets its games, and that marketing efforts need to be recalculated.
Sega also said that this failure underscores that it's lagging behind in areas such as digital sales and data-driven marketing, especially compared to other Japanese companies like Capcom. To improve in these areas, Sega will focus its efforts on targeted advertising to build a fanbase through influencers, along with an emphasis on game recommendations from third parties such as players or content creators. Despite the disappointment, Sega's upcoming years look fairly promising with many titles such as Virtua Fighter Crossroads, Crazy Taxi: World Tour, Alien Isolation 2, and Persona 6. But alongside these and all the others we didn't mention, it was revealed that Sega plans to launch by the end of the current fiscal year (ending March 31, 2027) two more unannounced games based on different IPs, and all that's left for us is to wait and see what Sega has in store for us.
