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

[rahkeesh]

While there are indications that Forces wasn't a total disaster in all markets, putting it in the same class as Mania just feels like someone is trying to save face.

[Red Hot Jack]

Some Sonic fans pretend it flopped hard just because they didn't like it.

[Tracker_TD]

Much as I didn’t like Forces, it’s pretty obvious it’s done somewhat well. Just wish we could see hard figures, for it and Mania.

[Swing]

Well I'm not surprised by it. It has almost all the fanservice in it that fans like. If Blaze would have also appeared in it, than Forces would be technically the perfect Sonic game... at least for the die hard fans. 

[Blue Blood]

18 minutes ago, Tracker_TD said:

Much as I didn’t like Forces, it’s pretty obvious it’s done somewhat well. Just wish we could see hard figures, for it and Mania.

It's not outright bombed, but I'm very certain it's performed worse than Mania. And even considering the price points of the two games, I think it's likely performed worse in raw numbers and revenue. If SEGA have any sense, they'll also consider the fact that they were able to do this for Mania:

... whilst Forces got a a paltry 56 on Metacritic. 

And you know what else SEGA should be considering? This list, courtesy of Phediuk at Restera. It's a list of all of the new 2017 releases that qualify for ranking on Metacritic. Mania makes it to #18, scoring higher than Pokémon USUM, Destiny 2, Uncharted TLL and Splatoon 2. It has an average score of 86, which is arguably the best score a Sonic game has ever had (CD iOS comes in at 93 and Advance 1 at 87, it's up to you how much you want to count them). Forces on the other hand comes in at #201 (11th from last), with it's aforementioned score of 56. 

I would like to hope that SEGA's got more sense and integrity than just to look at sales and will give proper consideration to how they handle the franchise going forwards. I'll be really surprised if Forces is on track to sell more copies and bring in more money than Mania. Especially in the long run.

[Tornado]

1 hour ago, Jack of Tangles said:

Some Sonic fans pretend it flopped hard just because they didn't like it.

Without knowing how Sega budgeted or expected it to sell makes it impossible to determine, but they dumped it into bargain bins from the start and may very well have included the entire period of its development (3+ years of game engine development before Forces itself was started) into its costs. Even if they only counted a year or so of development, it never set the charts on fire (contrast to Mania where Sega has shouted its financial success from the rooftops) even though the game only got them 66% of the revenue of a typical game to begin with.

 

 

Put another way: The Amazing Spiderman 2 was estimated to be one of the most profitable and biggest revenue movies of 2014. It still did so badly against Sony's projections that it scared the everloving shit out of them into essentially giving up the character entirely.

[Blue Blood]

For what it may or may not be worth, Forces have been consistently bouncing around the mid 20s to mid 30s in the UK all-formats sales charts since it released. The first few weeks saw it a bit higher, but last week saw it a #34. It's gone up and down, but hasn't exactly been raving. 

[Red Hot Jack]

Honestly it wouldn't surprise me if it sold well due to the amount of fanservice that was in it, between the epic story, focus on characters, edgy villain, the Avatar feature and customization, boost and classic gameplay returning, past zones, etc. It was a game for fans, I just wish they had made it more fun to play.

[Diogenes]

9 minutes ago, Jack of Tangles said:

focus on characters

Did it really, though? Like...they're there, but are they really focused on?

[Red Hot Jack]

Just now, Diogenes said:

Did it really, though? Like...they're there, but are they really focused on?

Definitely more than the last decade?

[Tarnish]

2 minutes ago, Jack of Tangles said:

Definitely more than the last decade?

Shoving in just for the sake of fan service is the worst kind of 'focus' I can imagine.

[UpCDownCLeftCRightC]

Forces probably did okay. It was a larger budget game available on all platforms with a holiday release. For it not to do well would have been a full-on disaster for SEGA and something I'm quite sure none of us wanted to see. Forces bombing like that would have seen us towards a bleak future for the blue blur, I'm almost 100% positive of that. 

However, there are no indications it did "well" by Sonic's usual standards. Some people have been tracking these things since release and Forces hasn't had anywhere near Mania's chart momentum. And if you think about the political aspect, what is SEGA of Japan realistically going to say about that publicly?

"Yeah, the new, low budget indie Team completely annihilated us fully-funded veterans by every conceivable and relevant metric."

Imagine that at SXSW.... Not gonna happen.

If there's absolutely any silver lining to be had anywhere with Forces, SOJ is going to talk it up. Does not mean they aren't having serious conversations behind closed doors though. You can bet they have been since August and Mania shredded their expectations. Its as plain as day they have been.

(hopefully they're productive...)

Forces doing okay though likely means Modern Sonic isn't going anywhere. Some of us wanted a total reboot/refreshing of characters and design away from the Modern Sonic philosophy (me :D) but there is still potential yet that something good can come of this. Frankly, based on the internal rumors we've been hearing about poor relations between SOJ and SOA, we should be cheering people like Christian Whitehead/Aaron Webber on to have a clear channel of feedback to the higher ups, and take a more direct leadership role in the future of the franchise. 

[Blue Blood]

26 minutes ago, Jack of Tangles said:

It was a game for fans

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

[Kuzu]

27 minutes ago, Jack of Tangles said:

Honestly it wouldn't surprise me if it sold well due to the amount of fanservice that was in it, between the epic story, focus on characters, edgy villain, the Avatar feature and customization, boost and classic gameplay returning, past zones, etc. It was a game for fans, I just wish they had made it more fun to play.

These are things only diehard fans will care about, and I'm damn certain there aren't that many fans of this stuff to sell amazingly well.

Just now, Blue Blood said:

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

I know we like to joke how Mania has actual love put in it over Forces, but the latter does have fans who love that edgy shonen crap and think it fits for Sonic. Look at how many people love Infinite despite literally everything wrong with him, simply because he looks edgy and has cool powers.

[Tornado]

33 minutes ago, Kuzu the Boloedge said:

edgy shonen crap

"Sounds like at least a 30/40 to me." - Famitsu

 

 

Incidentally:

1 hour ago, Jack of Tangles said:

between the epic story, focus on characters, edgy villain, the Avatar feature and customization

These are the kind of things that would have been much bigger selling points irrelevant of game quality circa 2005. I'd say the last one is the only one that can probably actually stand on its own.

[Swing]

1 hour ago, Diogenes said:

Did it really, though? Like...they're there, but are they really focused on?

Well if their just been shown that seems to be enough to please the fans.

[Shadowlax]

1 hour ago, Tornado said:

 

These are the kind of things that would have been much bigger selling points irrelevant of game quality circa 2005. I'd say the last one is the only one that can probably actually stand on its own.

Cool bad ass edgy villain is still a thing people like in games, I mean infinite isn't any of those things but edgy. But people do by games and get interested because of things like that. 

So I don't know what you are saying here. There are also story focused games that still do well

 

[Razule]

6 minutes ago, Shadowlax said:

Cool bad ass edgy villain is still a thing people like in games, I mean infinite isn't any of those things but edgy. But people do by games and get interested because of things like that. 

So I don't know what you are saying here. There are also story focused games that still do well

 

In Sonic.

[Shadowlax]

1 minute ago, Razule said:

In Sonic.

I think those things could be selling points

If they were done well. 

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. 

[knuckles20]

1 hour ago, Swing said:

Well if their just been shown that seems to be enough to please the fans.

I don’t want my favorite characters degrade into wallpaper doing nothing but being cheerleaders to Sonic. It pissed me off in Generations and the moment CS showed up I was worried it would happen again with Forces.

What would really please me if they actually contribute to the plot but more importantly, make them playable after years of doing jack all nothing with them.

[Swing]

58 minutes ago, knuckles20 said:

What would really please me if they actually contribute to the plot but more importantly, and make them playable after years of doing jack all nothing with them.

This can only happen, if we just focus on one of them at the time. Blaze for example worked pretty decent because she was part of a very small cast. She could shine and had a decent amount of screentime and also could tribute something to the plot. If Sega always cram in all characters at once, so that every Sonic fan can have his/her favorite character in the game than it is no wonder that all of Sonic's friends are so under developed. They do this all the time. Heck Knuckles and Shadow were planned to appear in Unleashed just for the sake of having them their. Luckily they were not used. 

This is the biggest problem. Fans just want to have all of the characters at once. If Shadow shows up, Rouge also have to show up, if Silver is there, Espio has to be there as well. This is the way Sonic roles with it's characters. 

[knuckles20]

45 minutes ago, Swing said:

This can only happen, if we just focus on one of them at the time. Blaze for example worked pretty decent because she was part of a very small cast. She could shine and had a decent amount of screentime and also could tribute something to the plot. If Sega always cram in all characters at once, so that every Sonic fan can have his/her favorite character in the game than it is no wonder that all of Sonic friends are so under developed. They do this all the time. Heck Knuckles and Shadow were planned to appear in Unleashed just for the sake of having them their.(Un)- Luckily they were not used. 

This is the biggest problem. Fans just want to have all of the characters at once. If Shadow shows up, Rouge also have to show up, if Silver is there, Espio has to be there as well. This is the way Sonic roles with it's characters. 

I'm not asking them to cram all of them at once. I'd be fine with at least 2-3 characters provided that 

A. They're not classic Sonic or another version of Sonic.

B. It's not the create your own thing again.

It shouldn't be a crime to want more from the games.

 

[Multikaris]

9 minutes ago, knuckles20 said:

I'm not asking them to cram all of them at once. I'd be fine with at least 2-3 characters provided that 

A. They're not classic Sonic or another version of Sonic.

B. It's not the create your own thing again.

It shouldn't be a crime to want more from the games.

 

Mania did so, but in a 2D Space only. And just the trio this time. 

[knuckles20]

33 minutes ago, Miragnarok said:

Mania did so, but in a 2D Space only. And just the trio this time. 

I know Mania had Tails and Knuckles but I not feeling the "Classic era is so AWESOME" feeling SEGA was going with in recent years.

[Korke]

Maybe it paid itself, but I doubt it was success like they want us to believe. While the only true numbers we have are on PC sales, they may still have reflections on console sales.

Forces is currently the worst selling Sonic game with only ~30k while the former game which had this title was the re-released SLW with 130k. While it's true that Mania is barely above that number, it's fair to remember the infamous 2-week delay which led to massive refunds.

Another thing to consider is that Forces was mostly protected against Piracy in its release moment, being cracked only a while ago, while SLW had a day one crack, and Mania had a day 4 crack.