Sonic Forces sells an estimated 234,000 units worldwide in the first week at retail.

[Tornado]

16 hours ago, Shadowlax said:

So I don't know what you are saying here.

That people clamoring for a Sonic game for how edgelord and epic they think it is and pushing it to the top of the sales charts as a result was a ship that sailed when the franchise destroyed its reputation to everyone else over a decade ago.

 

16 hours ago, Shadowlax said:

I think those things could be selling points

If they were done well. 

Good thing I didn't note that those things could no longer be considered

17 hours ago, Tornado said:

selling points irrelevant of game quality

or anything.

 

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Word spreads pretty fast these days. If there was word that a new sonic game invoked the nostalgic feelings people got with sa1 and 2, I think those could be selling points for sure. 

If there's one thing Sonic Forces was known for, it's excellent word of mouth.

 

[Dr. Detective]

8 hours ago, Blue Blood said:

Nah bro, that was Mania. Forces was a game for everyone except the fans.

The actual game we got was a game for everyone except the fans, sure.

A lot of the elements it had (not all of them of course) were a lot of the things I liked and grew up with the series though. The general idea behind the characters getting together to stop Dr. Eggman in a modern 3D Sonic game setting with vocal tracks and guitars and epic scope, set-pieces, adventure, and action-sequences was something I wanted to see and I allowed the idea of it to build up in my head the more I saw of the game's footage. I figured that the best idea for a Sonic game ever; where in Eggman finally takes over the world, couldn't possible be something that turned out to be so bland and unmemorable that it would break me and flip my cynical switch to 11. At the very least something interesting would have had to have come from it I thought. It's impossible to be so incompetent that you're handed the outline for an epic Avengers tale on a silver platter and you do nothing with it I figured...

I was making sure to keep my expectations somewhat grounded despite my obvious excitement just to see some of this stuff in action and they still somehow disappointed me.

Meanwhile, I'm not a fan of 2D Sonic and I can't comfortably play it at all so I didn't even get Mania. What a shit year for me as a Sonic fan.

[Your Vest Friend]

Okay, so how about some reports because we like some presentations to look at? 

There's a fiscal report out for third quarter results, and it notes in the packaged game section that Sonic Forces "performed strongly".

The financial statement also lists Sonic Forces as a major contributor to them getting 14 million in the quarter compared to 8 million over the same period the previous year. Note that this doesn't mean Sonic Forces sold 14 million, obviously. 

[Milo]

Should had realized it (and brought it up) a while back, but Sega as of the 2015 restructuring / 2016 FY has pretty much stopped giving individual numbers for the sales of their games altogether. Not too big of a fan of that decision, since it's pretty much up to the developers or franchise-specific events now to give sales (i.e. Atlus reported Persona 5's sales, the Puyo Puyo Anniversary event revealed Puyo Puyo Tetris was nearing one million sales).

The upcoming SXSW panel says they will talk about the sales performance for both games, so I guess that will be how we'll learn any sales numbers. Can't help but question if whether they will actually give individual sales for both games, or will they pull a Microsoft and fudge the numbers together.

[Bobnik]

19 minutes ago, Space☆Yeow said:

The upcoming SXSW panel says they will talk about the sales performance for both games, so I guess that will be how we'll learn any sales numbers. Can't help but question if whether they will actually give individual sales for both games, or will they pull a Microsoft and fudge the numbers together.

I wouldn't expect actual sales numbers during SXSW panel. It'll probably be some vague numbers or "both games have done well" or something like that.

Anyway, I'm not sure if Forces "performing strongly" is a good thing or not. While I didn't want it to do well (cuz that could give the wrong message to higher-ups), I also didn't want(or expect) it to fail harder than Battleborn (mostly cuz I'm not that petty and I don't think the game is outright garbage material). All I can say is "neat I guess"

[Red Hot Jack]

1 hour ago, VEDJ-F said:

Okay, so how about some reports because we like some presentations to look at? 

There's a fiscal report out for third quarter results, and it notes in the packaged game section that Sonic Forces "performed strongly".

The financial statement also lists Sonic Forces as a major contributor to them getting 14 million in the quarter compared to 8 million over the same period the previous year. Note that this doesn't mean Sonic Forces sold 14 million, obviously. 

So when are we getting the official sales figures? I'm really curious at this point... may we take a guess at how much it sold? Like, compared to Colors and Generations, which I think sold 1,8m and 1,6m respectively, if I remember correctly.

Well, I'm glad Sonic still sells, that's all that matters to me, and hopefully this positive news means we are getting more 3D main Sonic games that expand on the things I mentioned that Forces did well; if the game had not sold well I would have panicked because it'd probably mean we would only get a bunch of 2D digital games.

[Your Vest Friend]

Also, before anyone tries to say that they're saying this to try and mask how it did (no-one has, and it's not aimed at any one person, just a precaution), the fiscal reports are not afraid to up and say if a game performed badly, as the feedback for Sonic Lost World's sales shows. They may try to bullshit an excuse for it doing badly, but they won't hide that it's done badly. So yeah, if they say it performed strongly, they're happy with how it did. 

[Tornado]

5 hours ago, Jack of Tangles said:

So when are we getting the official sales figures?

Companies don't report those unless they are far and away above expectations or they have a regular practice of doing so (Sony does the latter, for example). Sonic Heroes, for example, was such a wild seller that Sega went out of their way to mention its numbers in their financial statements for something like two years. Then they did the same for ShtH for at least one financial year.

[Milo]

8 hours ago, Bobnik said:

I wouldn't expect actual sales numbers during SXSW panel. It'll probably be some vague numbers or "both games have done well" or something like that.

Sega's existing IR reports has already stated both games performed strongly in their respective reports. Verbatim repeating that at the event without anything substantially new about their performances would be pretty redundant at best, a complete waste of time at worst. Virtually every major Sonic game has also had some numbers given for it in some form, it's not exactly a great look if what's supposed to be one of Sega's biggest IPs no longer gets any sales numbers at all.

With that said, Sega giving out "vague numbers" is what I was alluding to when I brought up Sega combining Mania and Forces' sales together in my previous post. For me, it's not so much what Sega's PR will say than it is how Sega's PR will say it.

[KHCast]

I won’t be surprised if Forces did better than Mania in Sega’s higher ups minds inspiring more games like that and less like Mania.(effort and quality wise) Forces got the much better marketing and child audience 

[Badnik Mechanic]

10 hours ago, VEDJ-F said:

Okay, so how about some reports because we like some presentations to look at? 

There's a fiscal report out for third quarter results, and it notes in the packaged game section that Sonic Forces "performed strongly".

Hang on... there is a way we can figure out what a 'performed strongly' means in a Sega report.

Right under that they say

New title, “ Ryu ga Gotoku KIWAMI 2” and new PC game title “Football Manager 2018” performed strongly. And Football Manager 2018 is only on PC.

 

Ok we can't... because looking at the actual data, 'performed strongly' could mean utterly anything.

Sonic Forces on PC sold according to Steam Spy over 30k

Football Manager on PC according to Steam Spy sold over 600k!

Now we can't get accurate sales figures for the consoles and likely never will... however... if we look at trophy data for the PS4 version at least and again, this won't be anywhere near total sales or even total owners... the first trophy you can get on that game is to clear stage 1. Current number of achievers, 5,892.

So that's at least 35k+ of owners...

Now does anyone seriously believe that Xbox and Switch owners come close to 600k?

At a guess I would say this game has around 100k in sales at the very best, no way does it have much more than that.

Edit 2: Even then, according to Sega's second report 

 

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In the packaged game software field, sales amounted to 14,280 thousand copies (8,130 thousand copies for the same period in the previous fiscal year) thanks to the sales of the new titles including “SONIC FORCES” and “Ryu ga Gotoku KIWAMI 2” as well as “Football Manager 2018,” a new PC game title.

Well in that case... it must be a much lower number than I first thought.

Yakuza is the GTA of Japan so that must have been a huge percentage of that... and as we've seen, Football manager sits at 600k on Steam Spy... leaves Sonic.

There must be a generic point where they say 'this performed strongly' because I bet that Forces cost a lot more to make than Football Manager did yet that was by far the strongest performing game for Sega.

 

Edit 3: In fact... Factor into this debate all the money that was spent on promotion and also the fact it was distributed in China of all places with a special limited edition console print. Even if it hit Segas 'performed well'... there is no way it's made the money. Football Manager based on that report has probably sold enough to cover not only it's own development budget but probably a large chunk of Forces'. Whereas Forces probably hasn't made enough to even dent the marketing that went into it.

 

Edit 4: Football Manager was also DOUBLE the price of Sonic Forces!

[Your Vest Friend]

If it had sold just that, I don't think they'd be calling it a strong performer, not when SLW was slammed when it sold 6-7x that amount. 

[KHCast]

For comparisons sake, has Sega used this phrasing regarding mania and its sales?

[Red Hot Jack]

Oh boy. Now the fans are grasping at straws hoping that a Sonic game sold badly even when an official report says it didn't. Their happy ending is to see Sonic dead, I really can't defend the fanbase anymore.

...Not that I trust Sega's reports completely, but definitely more than conspiracy theories.

[Diogenes]

The happy ending is actually for Sega/Sonic Team to realize that producing bad games is not going to be profitable for them, so they reevaluate how they handle the series and work to create better games.

That isn't going to happen if bad games "perform strongly".

[Your Vest Friend]

Wait a minute, the title of the thread says it made 234k in the first week. How can the figure be anywhere close to 100k if it was over that a long time ago?

[Badnik Mechanic]

4 minutes ago, Jack of Tangles said:

Oh boy. Now the fans are grasping at straws hoping that a Sonic game sold badly even when an official report says it didn't. Their happy ending is to see Sonic dead, I really can't defend the fanbase anymore.

...Not that I trust Sega's reports completely, but definitely more than conspiracy theories.

What the fuck, did you even fucking bother to look at what I wrote?

 

I posted to independent sources which actually make an effort to quantify individual sales figures based off definitive sales data and other factors which prove a sale. That's actual independent data based on sales which is not an estimation. Yet the figures are so low compared to another Sega game on Sega's, 'performed strongly' must be a low value.

A this....

Quote

 

In the packaged game software field, sales amounted to 14,280 thousand copies (8,130 thousand copies for the same period in the previous fiscal year) thanks to the sales of the new titles including “SONIC FORCES” and “Ryu ga Gotoku KIWAMI 2” as well as “Football Manager 2018,” a new PC game title.

 

Is in their own report! Is this also part of the conspiracy?

[Red Hot Jack]

2 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

The happy ending is actually for Sega/Sonic Team to realize that producing bad games is not going to be profitable for them, so they reevaluate how they handle the series and work to create better games.

That isn't going to happen if bad games "perform strongly".

I don't think it's a happy ending if Sega goes bankrupt, or decides that Sonic is no longer a profitable franchise, or hires an even smaller team and Sonic becomes exclusive to small digital games that appeal only to a select niche group that is left.

[Wraith]

5 minutes ago, Jack of Tangles said:

Oh boy. Now the fans are grasping at straws hoping that a Sonic game sold badly even when an official report says it didn't. Their happy ending is to see Sonic dead, I really can't defend the fanbase anymore.

...Not that I trust Sega's reports completely, but definitely more than conspiracy theories.

They want the game to perform poorly so the series doesn't go in a direction they don't want. It's the same as you wanting it to succeed in the face of Mania to prevent, in your own words:

Quote

a bunch 2D digital games.

Everybody's just hoping they get what they want here, as usual.

That being said, it's clear the game didn't perform poorly imo, so we'll see what happens.

[Badnik Mechanic]

6 minutes ago, VEDJ-F said:

Wait a minute, the title of the thread says it made 234k in the first week. How can the figure be anywhere close to 100k if it was over that a long time ago?

Because that figure is from VG Charts which instantly brings into question the validity, but with this report, it only appears to be packaged goods and given how Ryu ga Gotoku Kiwami 2 is on there but neither Yakuza 0 or Kiwami 1 is, I'm thinking this is for Japanese regions only.

[KHCast]

1 minute ago, Jack of Tangles said:

I don't think it's a happy ending if Sega goes bankrupt, or decides that Sonic is no longer a profitable franchise, or hires an even smaller team and Sonic becomes exclusive to small digital games that appeal only to a select niche group that is left.

Why is the fear that one bad game with bad sales suddenly tanks their main selling franchise? That’s like saying if one CoD game sold bad they’d decide its no longer profitable 

[Diogenes]

1 minute ago, Jack of Tangles said:

I don't think it's a happy ending if Sega goes bankrupt, or decides that Sonic is no longer a profitable franchise, or hires an even smaller team and Sonic becomes exclusive to small digital games that appeal only to a select niche group that is left.

No, but it's not a happy ending if they keep producing bad games in perpetuity either. Nobody is hoping for Sega to go bankrupt; the hope is that it stings enough that they're forced to improve rather than settling for the current level of quality.

[Badnik Mechanic]

 

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or hires an even smaller team and Sonic becomes exclusive to small digital games that appeal only to a select niche group that is left.

Why would it be terrible if they were decent?

[Red Hot Jack]

Just now, Diogenes said:

No, but it's not a happy ending if they keep producing bad games in perpetuity either. Nobody is hoping for Sega to go bankrupt; the hope is that it stings enough that they're forced to improve rather than settling for the current level of quality.

I don't think they are that smart to understand that, and even then, they don't have a team of talents to make quality games. They'd likely call it a defeat before trying to improve anything.

[Bobnik]

1 minute ago, KHCast said:

Why is the fear that one bad game with bad sales suddenly tanks their main selling franchise? That’s like saying if one CoD game sold bad they’d decide its no longer profitable 

Tell that to EA that closes companies only cuz one game failed to meet sales. /s

Anyway, as I already said, if it "preformed strongly" by their standarts, then it "performed strongly". The main question is what is considered "strong performance".