Sega Has Been Making Some Serious Money, Here’s What We Know

The video game business can be a difficult one. One hit game or one flop can truly make the difference. Sega, a company that has seen more than its share of ups and downs in the industry is currently enjoying being up, rather than down. The company has released their numbers from their last full fiscal quarter and they show both an increase in sales as well as profits compared to the same time period last year.

While Sega is responsible for some of the most popular titles in the history of gaming, the company has seen both great, and less great times over the years. 12 months ago was one of those less great times, as the studio reported $521 million in total sales, for an operating loss of $93 million. What a difference a year makes. According to Gamespot, Sega's report for their fiscal quarter from April 1 to June 30 included sales up 33 percent to $692 million, and, more importantly, profits were in the plus column, coming in at $30 million.

The reason for this shift in fortunes is being chalked up to a couple of things. First off, Sega says that the success of Phantasy Star Online 2 has been big, having reached 130,000 players. In addition, Sega also announced that Total War: Warhammer has been successful as well. While sales number were not released, the studio reported that the game has done very well in Europe.

Certainly, Sega will want to keep this momentum going. To that end, the studio announced "plans to launch titles focusing on mainstay IP titles," though, exactly what they meant by that is not clear. No specifics were mentioned. In addition, the studio is looking forward to the release of Persona 5 calling it a key release.

It will be interesting see what Sega is planning with their "mainstay IP titles." While we can rest assured that there will be more Sonic the Hedgehog games, the track record with those in recent years have been much more miss than hit. There are certainly plenty of other titles that they could be planning to make new games for. In recent months Sega has licensed out the Shinobi title to be made into a film. There's a good chance they could be looking at a new game to coincide with that.

Which Sega IP would you like to see make a return? Let us know in the comments.