Sega software sales on the rise, for now

Sega Sammy's recovery continues: Despite the generally bad economy, the company is turning around -- just not at Sonic speed. For the first half of the company's fiscal year, ending September 30, 2010, sales in the Home Video Game Software division (the "Sega" you know) were up 19 percent over the same period last year to ¥18.7 billlion ($231 million). Now, imagine this group as a Russian nesting doll inside the "Consumer Business" division, which recorded net sales of ¥38.7 billion ($477.5 million; up 2.9 percent) during the first half, despite an operating loss of ¥1.3 billion ($16.1 million) -- though the full-year projection is a more rosy ¥7 billion in operating income.

Three PSP games were highlighted as "Major Titles" for the period, including Kurohyo: Ryu ga Gotoku Shinsyo, a.k.a. Black Panther: New Yakuza Chapter, which sold 250,000 units; and a pair of licensed music games, Hatsune Miku: Project Diva 2nd and K-On Houkago Live, accounting for 340,000 and 210,000 units sold, respectively. Overall, total sales of 33 available software SKUs in the first half reached 6.6 million units, besting the 5.4 million mark set by 30 SKUs during the first half of the last fiscal year. However, the full-year projection -- 16 million units sold from 75 SKUs -- is significantly lower than last fiscal year's total, 26.75 million units sold (across 105 SKUs).

In its report, the company said that the software industry has been "generally weak" in the US and European markets due to ... "headwind like sluggish personal consumption." The company's overview statement claims: "The Group needs to adapt to changing business environment in which the market demand for new content geared to social networking service (SNS), smartphone is expanding."