By Sonic Standards, a Near Blockbuster
Judging by the release of Sega Sammy Holdings’s third quarter results earlier today, VGChartz grossly underestimated how robust sales were for Sonic Colors.
The unofficial tally there maxed out at just over a million combined units sold by the end of 2010. The actual number was far greater, to the tune of 1.85 million units across both Wii and DS in the quarter. Keep in mind that this is just for the period through December 31st, an approximate 6-7 week period of sale. That ultimately may mean Colors has crossed the 2 million mark by now, sealing its fate as one of the most commercially successful pure Sonic titles in a long, long time.
Figures for Sonic Free Riders and Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode I were not released. Still, this combined with sales of about 820,000 copies for Sega’s Vanquish led to double the operating income in Sega Sammy’s consumer business division–this despite selling almost 20 percent less software compared to Q3 2010. Sega Sammy’s consumer business division reported ¥2.8 billion in operating income, or more than $34.2 million.
We’ll afford the full breakdown of facts and figures from Sega Sammy’s third quarter earnings later today on TSSZ News. Thanks to Matriculated for sending this in. If you have news to share, be sure to share it with us by clicking News Tips at the top of every page.
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I’m going to have to admit, sonic 4 and sonic colors is not all that, sonic 4 feels too much like a rehash, and colors feeling somewhat going in the right direction yet staying in the sonic unleashed way of gameplay. I’m more of a fan of sonic adventure/sonic heroes style gameplay rather than that gimmicky 2.5 style gameplay just because they cant make a proper 3D sonic game. Also colors was dull in other ways. It’s hard to be impressed by colors alot. I’m actually starting to like sonic & sega ASR because that seems like one of the best kart racers.
^ It’s hard to be impressed by Colors? Then by SASAR I can’t even tell XD
But I actually prefer Sonic Colors over all the game of this past decade, that for sure.
its good to see colors getting the recognition it truly deserves.
HOLY CRAP! Sonic Unleashed struck 2 million units not so long ago, and that game is nearly 3 years old. This one has only been out for 3 or 4 months and it’s probably over 2 million now? I can now say 2 things to Super Mario Galaxy 2 fans: 1) Sonic is BACK BABY! 2) SEGA does what NINTENDON’T!
Sega’s Sonic Team back.
Geez, DKC:R sold 4.2 mil in that same time period. Nintendo really are monsters, huh?
@Tom
No offense, dude… but Mario Galaxy 2 sold 6.15 million copies and is one of the best-selling games of the Wii.
And as much as it pains me to say this… I was there when Sega and Nintendo were raging their console wars. And clearly, in the end Nintendo won. Sorry, but it’s the truth.
It will take a long time still for Sega to come back to doing what “Nintendon’t”.
I helped.
this game was fun, how can it not be the best selling Sonic game?
If the rumurs were true, then its the time for HD port ( but i want something new, not just port!)
My personal opinion is that lumping two different games (for different consoles no less) into one sales figure is totally cheating. They are not at all the same game, even if they share the same title and theme.
That’s only marginally different than combining the original Mega Man’s sales with Mega Man Powered Up (to use just one example), the only difference being the larger time gap between the two releases.
If you divide that number evenly between the two versions (which I’m sure is not very accurate), you’ve got less than a million copies per game, and that’s not actually very impressive.
Although I’m disappointed that they had to combine the sales of both versions of Colors to come up with this number, its good news nonetheless. Are we at the “sells like hotcakes” segment yet? Please to me we are.
Although I’m disappointed that they had to combine the sales of both versions of Colors to come up with this number, its good news nonetheless. Are we at the “sells like hotcakes” segment yet? Please till me we are.
Why the hell are there 2 comments? There shouldn’t be 2 comments. >_<
So it sells!!!!!!! where is the HD port SEGA????!!!
@Tom Cole: What happens when you actually put effort into your games … you get more money, a lot faster. Thanks for finally waking up, SEGA.
@ChaoticFox
Keep in mind that this is sales figures from the time of the game’s release to the end of last year. The individual versions have most likely sold significantly beyond 1 million by now.
Also, they did the same thing lumping the different versions of Sonic Unleashed, that being 2 versions across 4 systems (3 across 5 if the mobile version counts), which was a total of 5 million copies over the course of 2 years. If thats good, than the fact that 2 versions of Sonic Colors across only 2 systems has sold over 2 million copies total over the course of merely 2 and a half months is actually really good. Obviously not mega-nintendo-first-party good, but still pretty impressive.
@Krush
Maybe I don’t know what constitutes good, but a trifle over a million units (worldwide, no less) during the holiday buying season doesn’t SOUND like a hugely impressive number, especially given the fact that the sales for those games is likely on an extremely sharp decline and probably won’t see another significant spike.
Despite Sega’s new BS policy about oversaturation, with at least 3 new games being released this year, Colors is going to get pushed to the back of the line. Its selling streak is essentially over.
Still, the fact remains that whether these sales figures are impressive or not, lumping two entirely different games together (whether they have done it before or not) just because they share a name is totally misleading bullshit.
These are shipped numbers, not sold to customers.
@Andre: “Clearly” they one? Sorry, to disappoint, but “CLEARLY”, it was more or less a tie. Sega lost miserably to Nintendo in Japan, that much is true, but in the States, Sega was just a bit more popular than Nintendo. As far as numbers are concerned, then yes, Nintendo one, but as far as apealing to a mass audience, it was a tie.
I agree though. It would be nice to see Sega return to making hardware.