Sega leadership recently inferred that the release of Super Mario Bros Wonder had a negative effect on the sales of Sonic Superstars, with the latter failing to meet its projected sales targets. These details emerged from the newly released English translation of a Q&A session conducted after Sega's Q3 results announcement for the current financial year. During the session, Sega confirmed that Sonic Superstars had underperformed.
Sega Sammy Holdings' executive vice president, Makoto Takahashi, and IR/SR department director, Nobuaki Yoshii, were asked to assess the performance of the game. They acknowledged that despite the overall positive reception from players, the game failed to meet expectations due to heavy competition in the same genre at the time of its launch. Further clarifying their stance, Sega tacitly acknowledged that launching Sonic Superstars a mere three days prior to Super Mario Bros Wonder had adversely impacted its sales.
While not mentioning Nintendo's game directly, the release timeframe suggests that Sonic's primary competition came from Super Mario Bros Wonder, with other notable titles released around that period being SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake and DreamWorks Trolls Remix Rescue. The Sonic Superstars review by VGC praised its successful replication of 16-bit Sonic gameplay.
In a prior financial update in November 2023, Sega Sammy Holdings' president and CEO, Haruki Satomi, stated that the sales for Sonic Superstars in October did not meet expectations. Rather than attributing this dip to Mario specifically, Satomi pointed towards the influx of game releases in late 2023.
Satomi emphasized that he expected major sales in November and December, as those months traditionally see the best performance for Sonic games. He also revealed that over 90% of the marketing budget for Sonic Superstars will be utilised during the Thanksgiving and holiday season. However, Sega's recent comments suggest that this increased marketing investment has not generated the anticipated sales, with the game's performance still falling short of projections.
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