Sega Profits Down, But Phantasy Star Online 2 Exceeding Expectations

There’s good news and bad news from Sega. The good news is that Phantasy Star Online 2 is doing well and that earnings from the game are exceeding expectations.

Earlier in the month, Sega announced that Phantasy Star Online 2 has over 1 million registered IDs in Japan and that they would be doing a special giveaway in order to celebrate. The game is planned for western release in 2013.

Now for the bad news. Pachislot and Pachinko business is weak in Japan, and this has caused Sega to revise their forecast for the first half (April – September) of their ongoing fiscal year.

Sales of Pachislot machines for the April – September period were expected to be 179,000 units, but Sega have revised this number downward to 108,000 units. Meanwhile, the forecast for Pachinko machines has been revised downward from 103,000 units to 57,000 units.

As a result, while Sega originally expected profits of 3.5 billion yen ($44.4 million) for their April – September period, they have now revised this to 2 billion yen ($25.4 million).

For reference, Sega’s profits during the same period in their previous fiscal year were 3.98 billion yen ($50.5 million). Phantasy Star Online 2’s strong performance was not enough to make up for the drop in the Pachislot and Pachinko business.

However, Sega point out, profit margins on Pachinko and Pachislot machines will increase due to cost improvement measures centred around the re-use of components.