SEGA Misses Early 2026 Revenue Projection As Full Games, Free-to-Play Releases “Fell Short” Of Expectations
As unfortunate of a result as for a publicly-traded company, let alone one focused on video game development, SEGA’s latest financial reports have revealed that both their full-fledged and free-to-play offerings have fallen short of the Sonic the Hedgehog home’s early forecasts.
Delivering this update by way of their FY2026/3 Q3 Results / Forecast, as covering the period ranging from December 2025 – February 13th, 2026, SEGA Sammy right out of the gate admits that their quarterly results “fell short of initial forecast mainly due to the Entertainment and the Gaming Business,” with “full game sales, new F2P [free-to-play] titles and [Angry Birds subsidiary] Rovio’s performance” all cited as contributing factors.
Expanding on their declaration, the company explained that in terms of the full game sales, “Both new titles and repeat sales performed below expectations”, while their F2P segment took big hits from the underperformance of the new, outside-of-China release of Persona 5: The Phantom X and Sonic Rumble, which were then slightly levied thanks to “existing titles” having “performed as expected.”
Meanwhile, SEGA also noted that “Rovio’s performance has been sluggish”, while “character licensing revenue increased” and “revenue from DLC and subscription services” were presented as ‘nothing to write home about’.
And though their pachislot and pachinko machines, as well as their “existing businesses in the Gaming” had “performed strongly,” this stumble prompted the company to lower their full-year forecasts for sales, operating income, and ordinary income.
Seeking to give their investors some hope towards eventually profiting from each already-developed game, SEGA Sammy would offer them the barest of glimpses into their future dev plans, promising that Football Manager 26 will “Continue to enhance the quality and fan satisfaction through ongoing dialogue with the user community,” Sonic Rumble will “Strengthen operations through updates and other measures.”
As detailed by the company themselves, the relevant ‘full games’ released in FY2026 Q3 included Raidou Remastered: The Mystery of the Soulless Army, Shinobi: Art of Vengence, Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds, Persona 3 Reload, and Football Manager 26.
Interestingly, these results provide some interesting examples of how reviews and sales don’t always align, as despite apparently performing somewhat poorly, Raidou Remastered, Shinobi, Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds, and Persona 3 Reload all hold a ‘positive’ aggregated review score across Metacritic, Open Critic, and Steam.
But as for the mobile games…
Football Manager 26 was barely liked by critics and loathed by players. Main criticisms seem to be bugs, terrible UI, too complex for the casual players, paling in comparison to prior entries; and all magnified by being in development while the ’25 entry was cancelled.
Persona 5: The Phantom X was a muddied experience to everyone, with some complaints sounding exactly like those one would expect from a gacha game based on a popular IP would be: Less features than the main series, greedy and borderline predatory microtransactions, the global version offering less rewards to players.
Sonic Rumble was another middling title for fans, as they soon discovered that the game would not only kick off by pushing microtransactions, but do so frequently thereafter, the contents of which included expensive skins that can cost as much as an actual video game, FOMO battle-passes, and pay-to-win skills.
All in all, SEGA Sammy appears to be taking a ‘buckle down and push forward’ approach to getting out of their fiscal rut, their announced Entertainment sector plans for the next year including the release of “four major new titles for mainstay IPs”, a concerted effort to “Maximize title potential through enhancement of ‘sales capabilities'”, and a continuation of their efforts “to expand Transmedia business”
