That company that you remember for the Genesis and Sonic the Hedgehog is now making a big chunk of its money from games like Chain Chronicle and Puyo Puyo Quest.
Sega has revealed that it has a respectable hit rate when it comes to releasing mobile games, and its best-performing apps are doing better than ever. In a report released to investors last month and posted online today, the company noted that it has two games making more than $4 million every month and six games making around $1 million every 30 days. Sega lists 13 active games as successes, and that has encouraged it to invest even more in the potential $30 mobile gaming market moving ahead.
“Many existing hit titles are on a growing trend in this fiscal year,” reads the report.
Sega confirmed that it is planning to release 20 new games through the next fiscal year. Most of those will hit in the first half, which is from April through September.
Sega plans to develop many of its mobile games internally. But it is also working with third-party partners on at least five of its planned 20 apps.
The company is obviously keen to add to its roster of available titles since it has such a high success rate. And the top performing games, which are the aforementioned Chain Chronicle and Puyo Puyo Quest, are both making more than $4 million each month. Chain Chronicle is the No. 12 highest-grossing app in Japan, and Puyo is No. 14. They are also both trending up and are leading the charge in helping Sega’s mobile business grow every quarter.
Sega expects worldwide mobile revenue for fiscal year 2015 to reach $260 million. That’s up $870,000 from last year. But revenue is already above last year even just through the first three quarters of the year. And while Japan is where Sega is making most of its money, it is also expanding its roster of studios around the globe to help target other important territories.
As for Sonic, Sega is happy with the hedgehog’s performance on mobile. The endless runner Sonic Dash has surpassed 98 million downloads worldwide. That makes it by far the most successful game in the series, which has reached a cumulative total of around 144 million downloads on smartphones and tablets.