Sega Sammy has announced its financial results for the year ending March 31, 2026. Net sales rose 13.6 percent, but operating revenue of the company’s entertainment contents, including the video games segment, declined to 32.4 billion yen ($205.5 million) from 40.8 billion yen ($259 million).
The drop was mainly due to a $200 million impairment loss at Rovio in the third quarter. Sega’s business development efforts did not perform as expected and profits were lower than expected. Sega said it booked a total net loss of 5.7 billion yen ($31.6 million) due to impairment losses on Rovio and Stakelogic, an online slots and live casino gaming company it acquired in 2024.
Sega’s entertainment contents unit had a “soft” fiscal year, with sales rising 1.5 percent to 326.6 billion yen ($2.07 billion). Full game sales declined 12% to ¥67.2 billion ($426 million) despite new releases such as Football Manager 26 and Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds.
New Rovio game delays, underperformance of some titles and weaker results from current stalwarts were cited by Sega as reasons for total and full game sales decline. Free-to-play games brought in ¥53.7 billion ($341.1 million), a 14% rise. Sonic Rumble Party and Persona 5: The Phantom X were among the new releases.
However, the business reported that Sonic Rumble Party’s partnership with Rovio did not generate commercial value and performed below expectations.
The $882 million Super Game, which was first announced as being in development in 2021, has been cancelled by Sega. At the time, everything pointed us to the Super Game being a single game; however, we learned later that Sega used the phrase “Super Game” to refer to a host of expensive games.
There was no official announcement or titles associated with the description, and we never learned the exact nature of these games in the five years since the Super Game announcement. But if Sega’s latest financial earnings report is anything to go by, we probably won’t get to find out.
The brief statement Sega made on the “Review of the GaaS [games as a service]” page was “Decided to cancel Super Game” and added that no additional costs were incurred for the third quarter of its 2026 fiscal year due to the cancellation. She/Sega wrote that and that only.
In the “Upcoming Plans” slide elsewhere in the report, Sega lists the following titles, giving us a high-level overview of the games the firm plans to release in coming years:
- Stranger Than Heaven: Winter
- Persona 4 Revival: Release Date TBD
- Total War: Warhammer 40,000: Release Date TBD
- Total War: Medieval III: Release Date TBD
- New Virtua Fighter Project: Title/Release Date TBD
- Crazy Taxi: Title/Release Date TBD
- Golden Axe: Title/Release Date TBD
- Jet Set Radio: Title/Release Date TBD
- Streets of Rage: Title/Release Date TBD
- Alien: Isolation Sequel: Title/Release Date TBD
Though Sega doesn’t name any games specifically, it says that in its Quarter 3 2027 Fiscal Year forecast, it expects to “launch four new titles based on mainstay IPs,” suggesting it might be planning to launch four of the aforementioned games within the next fiscal year.
Sega will no longer prioritise free-to-play titles in favour of medium- and long-term growth. More than 100 developers from this segment have been reassigned to full game development to support mainstay IPs.
Sega clarified that Rovio will continue to support its overall games-as-a-service strategy, but will prioritise its “own restructuring first.”
GamesIndustry.biz recently spoke with Angry Birds creative director Ben Mattes about Rovio’s progress since its acquisition by Sega in 2023.
Mattes said that:
“They know that we’re a transmedia company. They know that we’re a mobile-first company. They know that they’ve had successes with Sonic. They know that they want to grow their mobile expertise.
“So of course from day zero, the ambition has been to make Angry Birds every bit as big as Sonic is from a transmedia point of view, and grow not just the Rovio mobile free-to-play business, but all of Sega’s mobile and free-to-play expertise and live-ops expertise across its portfolio.”
In the future, Sega hopes to grow in FY27 by releasing new full-length games from its flagship intellectual properties and enhancing its sales capabilities through better sales structures and revitalised marketing initiatives.
By licensing its intellectual property along with supporting movie adaptations, such as Sonic and Angry Birds, Sega also aims to widen its transmedia services.
