Sega Plans 2016 Thread "Join us for Dancing with the Sonic" "25th party livestream links in OP"

[SSF1991]

Ah. Then that sounds more like just a merchandising label used within companies. It's sort of like how code-names are given to games and home consoles. It's not what it's officially called, but more so a behind the scenes thing they use for marketing/business purposes. (I'm pretty sure SEGA doesn't officially call Sonic 4 its original Project Needlemouse name...lol)

[Tenko]

I must admit I'm worried about what impact if any a potential Crash Bandicoot game would have on Sonic's 25th game, should one be announced at E3, the rumblings behind the scenes seem to indicate that one is on the way, and that would be pretty big news. Would certainly take spotlight from whatever Sega has cooked up. Especially if it releases later this year too. Ratchet will have had its fair share of sales by the time Sonic's next outing is available..but a new Crash, after so long, and in its anniversary year too to boot.

[Chris Knopps]

6 hours ago, Tenko said:

I must admit I'm worried about what impact if any a potential Crash Bandicoot game would have on Sonic's 25th game, should one be announced at E3, the rumblings behind the scenes seem to indicate that one is on the way, and that would be pretty big news. Would certainly take spotlight from whatever Sega has cooked up. Especially if it releases later this year too. Ratchet will have had its fair share of sales by the time Sonic's next outing is available..but a new Crash, after so long, and in its anniversary year too to boot.

Crash Bandicoot is nice...

But I need me a new SPYRO in the style of the original trilogy. Now THAT would make me turn my back to this years Sonic game in a heartbeat.

...Should I be ashamed for admitting that?

[Salamander]

7 hours ago, Tenko said:

I must admit I'm worried about what impact if any a potential Crash Bandicoot game would have on Sonic's 25th game, should one be announced at E3, the rumblings behind the scenes seem to indicate that one is on the way, and that would be pretty big news. Would certainly take spotlight from whatever Sega has cooked up. Especially if it releases later this year too. Ratchet will have had its fair share of sales by the time Sonic's next outing is available..but a new Crash, after so long, and in its anniversary year too to boot.

While there'd certainly be competition between them for public spotlight and airtime, I'm not sure how much the core audiences would actually overlap.  I will freely confess to not being well-versed in Crash's history, so please correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I can tell there hasn't been a Crash game, much less a mainline Crash game, in quite a few years now, nor anything in the way of cross-media promotion for the character; given that, I would have to assume that the core audience for a Crash game would be nostalgic twenty-somethings?  And while I think that wouldn't be insignificant, if the game looked good enough, then conversely the core audience for Sonic right now is probably children who might never have heard of Crash, while the nostalgic twenty-somethings don't really represent for-sure purchasers any more for Sonic games.  So while both a new Sonic and a new Crash would definitely be in conceptual competition as anniversary-year mascot platformers, I don't know that they'd really be pitching to the same crowd.

[CrashRatchetFan]

19 hours ago, Chris Knopps said:

Crash Bandicoot is nice...

But I need me a new SPYRO in the style of the original trilogy. Now THAT would make me turn my back to this years Sonic game in a heartbeat.

...Should I be ashamed for admitting that?

 

That is never happening ever as long as Skylanders still exists. Skylanders was built on the back of Spyro.

Now I don't want to play favorites but if I had to say anything, I'd think a Crash revival would get people's attention. Due to better franchise reputation as well as being put to rest for a while (the last major game came out in 2008), people genuinely want a new Crash game. Everytime a new Crash hint / rumor appears, people go nuts so there is a demand. 

[fansega]

What could it be?

[Guest]

12 minutes ago, fansega said:

What could it be?

Someone fishing for views.

[molul]

Fake until proven otherwise.

[Monkey Destruction Switch]

2 hours ago, fansega said:

What could it be?

I have to agree that this is pretty clearly a fan-made video. Move along, nothing to see here. I would also like to remind the poster of this video that unsubstantiated rumors are not allowed.

[-Ace-]

Here's some news from Atlus, Shin Megami Tensei IV: Final is finally coming west this summer under the name "Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse"

 

The following trailer has a slight amount of gore in it just for a heads up

Spoiler

 

No news on Europe unfortunately  

[fansega]

9 hours ago, Monkey Destruction Switch said:

I have to agree that this is pretty clearly a fan-made video. Move along, nothing to see here. I would also like to remind the poster of this video that unsubstantiated rumors are not allowed.

It wasn't meant to be a trick, it's a teaser for my own fan game LOL.

[Zaysho]

4 hours ago, fansega said:

It wasn't meant to be a trick, it's a teaser for my own fan game LOL.

Instead of posting in a thread about current/future SEGA plans to advertise your fan-game, you could've made a thread in the appropriate section to talk about it. Otherwise, it just comes across as spam.

[NoirSuede]

I don't know if this counts but Atlus USA is publishing King Of Fighters XIV in the US :

 

[Tenko]

Rafa Knight being hired by Sega gives me hope that they are bettering themselves as they say, Rafa has major talent and does beautiful work so I'm pleased to see Sega noticing that. I'm betting Rafa's work for Archie probably was a pretty big part of being noticed tho. I was hoping either Sega or Capcom would notice one day haha.

[FriendBot]

Well this just came out of nowhere, there's apparently pre-order listing of some sort of celebratory 25th Anniversary CD/DVD combo thing on the CDJapan and the Japanese Amazon website. It's coming out on June 22nd.

http://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/product/B01E3CRNDC/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=247&creative=7399&creativeASIN=B01E3CRNDC&linkCode=as2&tag=ga04-22

http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/product/WWCE-31380

 

[shdowhunt60]

Sounds like a music compilation? Hard to tell, Google Translate's results are rather incomprehensible.

[FriendBot]

Well according to rough translations, the first 2 discs will be music while the third disc will be a DVD of some sort, what these discs will provide has yet to be decided.

[TheOcelot]

2 hours ago, sansy said:

Well this just came out of nowhere, there's apparently pre-order listing of some sort of celebratory 25th Anniversary CD/DVD combo thing on the CDJapan and the Japanese Amazon website. It's coming out on June 22nd.

http://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/product/B01E3CRNDC/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=247&creative=7399&creativeASIN=B01E3CRNDC&linkCode=as2&tag=ga04-22

http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/product/WWCE-31380

 

"25th anniversary of legendary Sega game "Sonic The Hedgehog" with bonus disc. *The DVD disc is encoded for region 2 (Japan, Europe, and Middle East), and no subtitles are included. "

Sounds like it's another release of Sonic 1's soundtrack and a dvd celebrating it's anniversary.

[Miles Wolf]

8 hours ago, BenderBR said:

"25th anniversary of legendary Sega game "Sonic The Hedgehog" with bonus disc. *The DVD disc is encoded for region 2 (Japan, Europe, and Middle East), and no subtitles are included. "

Sounds like it's another release of Sonic 1's soundtrack and a dvd celebrating it's anniversary.

If it's called "Selection" and it fills 2CDs it won't be Sonic 1's OST. It will surely have music from all Sonic games, selected for this album. 

[Salamander]

On 14/04/2016 at 5:37 PM, -Ace- said:

Here's some news from Atlus, Shin Megami Tensei IV: Final is finally coming west this summer under the name "Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse"

The following trailer has a slight amount of gore in it just for a heads up

No news on Europe unfortunately  

I'm disappointed that the trailer didn't retain the tagline "This epic is not sweet!"  Well, there's still time!  Anyway, after what happened with Shin Megami Tensei IV in the end, I'm pretty sure they'll just throw the American version on the European eShop after a few months (I think that was right after Sega acquired Atlus, so).  Ditto 7th Dragon III, probably.

[Milo]

Copypasting here a link to my previous post about historical Sonic sales from the Sega Plans 2015 thread. I also made a second post about the sales of certain Sonic games that happened only in quarterly earnings. I'm going to include that information here, as well as expand on that post (preferring not to bump a topic pertaining to Sega's operations of the past year) with sales of Sonic games' quarterly sales compared with their FY (overall) sales.

2006 Q1:

Sonic Heroes: 200,000

Sonic Mega Collection: 190,000

2007 (first time Sonic games were recorded in both quarterly earnings and fiscal earnings in existing IR reports) - Q1 / Q2 / Q3 / FY (aka Q4):

Sonic The Hedgehog [2006]* (PS3/360) (US/EU): 340,000 (NA) + 210,000 (EU) = 550,000 (Q3) > 870,000 (FY; +320,000 from Q3)

*Only the 360 version of the game was out during Q3, the PS3 version came out during Q4

Sonic Riders (PS2/XB/GC) (US or NA): 130,000 (Q1) >  420,000 (Q3; +290,000 from Q1) > 560,000 (FY; +140,000 from Q3)

Sonic Mega Collection [Plus] (PS2/XB/GC) (US): 240,000 (Q2) > 410,000 (Q3; +170,000 from Q2) > 570,000 (FY; +160,000 from Q3)

Shadow the Hedgehog (PS2/XB/GC) (NA): 350,000 (Q3) > 470,000 (FY; +120,000 from Q3)

Sonic Heroes (PS2/XB/GC) (US): 210,000 (Q2) > 420,000 (FY; +210,000 from Q2)

Sonic Rush (DS) (EU): 250,000 (Q3) + 360,000 (FY; +110,000 from Q3)

2008 - Q1 / Q2 / Q3:

Sonic Rush Adventure (NDS): 144,300 (US) + 234,800 (EU) = 378,300 (Q2/Q3)

Sonic Mega Collection [Plus] (PS2/XB/GC) (US): 70,000 (Q1) > 138,300 (Q2/Q3; +68,300 from Q1)

2009 - Q3 / FY:

Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games [2008] (Wii/DS) (US/EU): 3,169,000 (Q3) > 4,210,000 (FY; +1,041,000 from Q3)

Sonic Unleashed (PS3/360/Wii/PS2) (US/EU/JP): 2,027,000 (Q3) > 2,450,000 (FY; +423,000 from Q3)

2010 - Q3 / FY:

Mario and Sonic at the [Vancouver 2010] Olympic Winter Games (Wii/DS) (US/EU): 5,670,000 (Q3) > 6,530,000 (FY; +860,000 from Q3)

2011 - Q3 / FY:

Sonic Colors (Wii/DS) (US/EU/JP): 1,850,000 (Q3) > 2,180,000 (FY; +330,000 from Q3)

2012 - Q3 / FY:

Mario and Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games* (Wii/3DS) (US/EU): 2,390,000 (Q3) > 3,280,000 (FY; +890,000 from Q3)

*Only the Wii version was released during Q3, the 3DS version was released during Q4

Sonic Generations (PS3/360/3DS/PC) (US/EU/JP): 1,630,000 (Q3) > 1,850,000 (FY; +220,000 from Q3)

2013 - Q3 / FY:

Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed (WiiU/PS3/360/3DS/PSV/PC): 930,000 (Q3) > 1,360,000 (FY; +430,000 from Q3)

2014 - Q3 / FY:

Sonic Lost World (WiiU/3DS) (US/EU/JP): 640,000 (Q3) > 710,000 (FY; +70,000 from Q3)

2015 - Q3 / FY:

Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric (WiiU) + Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal (3DS) (US/EU/JP): 490,000 (Q3) > 620,000 (FY; +130,000 from Q3)

As one can see, this shows the sales of Sonic games to be considerably front-loaded. They make most sales in the first quarter, make a fraction of what they originally did in their second quarter, and don't show up again in later quarterly / FY IR reports afterwards. Contrary to belief, retail Sonic games don't historically have long legs or are slow burners--only Sonic Heroes, Sonic Mega Collection [Plus], and the first Mario and Sonic title apply here.

Speaking of the former two titles, some sales updates--the above quarterly sales added to the previously-gathered FY sales:

Sonic Heroes: 1,840,000 (2004 and 2007 FY results combined) + 200,000 copies from 2006 Q1 result = 2,040,000 copies in total

Sonic Mega Collection (Plus): 2,760,000 (2005 FY / AR results and 2007 FY results combined) + 328,300 (2006 Q1 and 2008 Q2/Q3 results combined) = 3,088,300 copies in total. If the original GameCube release of Mega Collection sold one million prior to Mega Collection Plus' release (as the GameCube label was released with a Player's Choice label); then that puts Sonic Mega Collection (Plus)'s total at 4,088,300 copies.

______________

Sonic games not listed in any of Sega's IR reports:

- The PSP-exclusive Sonic Rivals and Sonic Rivals 2.

- All Sega/Sonic-specific compilations following Sonic Mega Collection--Sonic Gems Collection, Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection/Sega Mega Drive Ultimate Collection, and Sonic Classic Collection.

- Sonic-specific spinoffs following the first Sonic Riders--the Sonic Riders sequels (Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity and Sonic Free Riders) and the Storybook games (Sonic and the Secret Rings, and Sonic and the Black Knight, though the latter got a cursory mention as a pending Q4 major release in the 2009 Q3 report).

[molul]

What does that mean, Gabe?

[Guest]

10 hours ago, Gabe said:

As one can see, this shows the sales of Sonic games to be considerably front-loaded. They make most sales in the first quarter, make a fraction of what they originally did in their second quarter, and don't show up again in later quarterly / FY IR reports afterwards. Contrary to belief, retail Sonic games don't historically have long legs or are slow burners--only Sonic Heroes, Sonic Mega Collection [Plus], and the first Mario and Sonic title apply here.

Isn't it more that Sega just doesn't report on how much Sonic games sold after some time? No reports on the sales numbers doesn't mean the games didn't sell well later on, it means that we don't know how much they sold.

Oh, and if you want sales figures, SteamSpy is a pretty good source for how much a game on Steam has sold. It uses Steam's API to look at how many Steam users own a game, among other details. Though keep in mind: a lot of the sales likely come from sales or bundles. So high sales numbers don't necessarily mean that Sega earned a lot with those sales. Like a lot of the sales can come from a Humble Bundle. 

One good way to notice if something was sold incredibly cheap or in a bundle is if there are a lot of people who own the game but haven't played it. After all, they might have bought the bundle for a different game, or just bought it for a buck without much thought and then forgot about it. For example: the owners total of Sonic Adventure DX is 430,129 ± 15,324 (the ± number is the margin of error). However, the players total is 176,151 ± 9,811. Meaning that only 40.95% of the people who bought the game actually played it at all.

Though keep in mind: if a game has had a free weekend, then the owners data isn't reliable as it includes everyone who installed the game during that free weekend. The site does make it clear if this is the case with a game though. For example, Sonic had a free weekend at some point, so the owners numbers of that is unreliable.

[Jango]

It means Sonic games sometimes have good to great sales because they were over hyped.

[Milo]

4 hours ago, molul said:

What does that mean, Gabe?

Ignoring the above bit about front-loaded sales I made, I think those numbers also show that Sonic games in the past usually net an extra 100K-400K sales in the follow-up quarter:

- The Mario and Sonic series (Wii/DS era anyway) usually perform the best in their second quarter compared to Sonic-specific titles, getting usually +800K (with the original M&S making an entire +1M).

- The "main series" Sonic games (Heroes, Sonic 2006, Unleashed, Colors, Generations) usually make at least more than +200K sales in the second quarter. Unleashed in particular made the most sales of the main series games in spite of its polarizing reviews (surpassing +400K); which I think can be attributed to their level of marketing / hype behind them and multiplatform status.

- The handheld, spinoff, and compilation Sonic games (Rush, Shadow the Hedgehog, Mega Collection, Boom spinoffs combined), usually make at least more than +100K.

- Riders in particular is a interesting case. The game sold +300K in its second quarter, more than most Sonic-specific games despite being a spinoff (only Sonic 2006 and Unleashed sold more in its second quarter). Riders also stands as the only Sonic game to appear in three quarterly earnings of a fiscal year.

- The recent slew of Sonic games bound to the Nintendo exclusivity deal (Lost World and to a lesser extent, the Sonic Boom spinoffs) definitely haven't had the same success as the previous entries in quarterly sales, for multiple obvious reasons.

- The sales of Rush and Rush Adventure in Europe indicate that specific series was most popular in Europe compared to the US.

4 hours ago, TimmiT said:

Isn't it more that Sega just doesn't report on how much Sonic games sold after some time? No reports on the sales numbers doesn't mean the games didn't sell well later on, it means that we don't know how much they sold.

Oh, and if you want sales figures, SteamSpy is a pretty good source for how much a game on Steam has sold. It uses Steam's API to look at how many Steam users own a game, among other details. Though keep in mind: a lot of the sales likely come from sales or bundles. So high sales numbers don't necessarily mean that Sega earned a lot with those sales. Like a lot of the sales can come from a Humble Bundle. 

One good way to notice if something was sold incredibly cheap or in a bundle is if there are a lot of people who own the game but haven't played it. After all, they might have bought the bundle for a different game, or just bought it for a buck without much thought and then forgot about it. For example: the owners total of Sonic Adventure DX is 430,129 ± 15,324 (the ± number is the margin of error). However, the players total is 176,151 ± 9,811. Meaning that only 40.95% of the people who bought the game actually played it at all.

Though keep in mind: if a game has had a free weekend, then the owners data isn't reliable as it includes everyone who installed the game during that free weekend. The site does make it clear if this is the case with a game though. For example, Sonic had a free weekend at some point, so the owners numbers of that is unreliable.

That's true, but when I was talking about Sonic games being front-loaded, it was more as a rebuttal to some claims I've seen that Sonic games (the new/retail ones, anyway) make most or the majority of their sales over the years, rather than when their initial release. I didn't intend to make it sound as if sales crater after the second quarter or so, so you have my apologies if that's how you saw it.

Thanks for the suggestion of SteamSpy. I could use that for a followup post on Sonic game sales on that platform. Though I can imagine that there wouldn't be much useful information to wring out due to the additional factors you mentioned.