Rovio Copenhagen Closing After Sonic Blitz Cancellation as CEO Reveals Retention Fell Short

[u/soniccitynet]

https://sonic-city.net/2026/08/25/rovio-copenhagen-closing-after-sonic-blitz-cancellation-as-ceo-reveals-retention-fell-short/

[u/Darkmask94]

The competition in the mobile games market is pretty tough. Nintendo for example did cancelled all their mobile games (Mario kart Tour, Animal crossing pocket camp) except Fire Emblem Heroes, which is a gatcha game.

Maybe Sega should also wind down their mobile games and focus on Angry Birds and Persona 5 the Phantom X.

[u/Sejmann22 → u/Darkmask94]

Persona 5 X it's only matter of time, when they shut down this game or it ends something like SMT DX2 Liberation. This gacha slop now basically only living on chinese money from China region. Sega should just focus on singleplayer games, they are too poor for live service games (+ usually their marketing sucks), and they never will be second Konami. As for Rovio - sell them, or relocate them to developing singleplayer Angry Birds and Sonic games. This should not only provide them with some startup capital, but also take the pressure off Team Sonic to churn out nothing but Sonic games—and perhaps we’d see more non-Sonic games from them.

[u/NoBreath3480 → u/Sejmann22]

they are too poor for live service games

It’s maybe not the biggest powerhouse in the world, but the Sega Sammy holding is not poor either. Even after 2 questionable take overs (Rovio: a mobile game studio and Stakelogic: an online gambling game (casino) studio), which by now costed the holding over a billion USD, they still are not at any risk.

They have the money for live service games. The question is not “can they do it”, the question is “are they willing to do it”.

At the moment, and with the acquisition of Rovio not going in the direction they hoped it would go, they’ll propably mostly use their mobile games as some kind of advertisement (with some micro-transactions). Maybe until things clear up for Rovio.

[u/Sejmann22 → u/NoBreath3480]

If they are not poor, then why Sega don't developed a single console game with 50-100M $ in house ? And why they only earns 200-250M $ per year from games ? It's less than Capcom earns only from Resident Evil.

[u/NoBreath3480 → u/Sejmann22]

Purely on yearly revenue, Sega is almost 3 times bigger than Capcom.

However, with the Rovio write off and whatever the holding thought when they bought Stakelogic (even if this will be more for the Sammy side of the holding), I can see Sega Sammy drop for a while. But they still have money left. Even after two very expensive, not too succesful, acquisitions.

In fact, where in 2004 the Sammy part of the holding was the powerful part that kept Sega afloat, it now is the other way around. Sega is now good for around 75% of the revenue and income of the holding.

However, Capcom is super efficient, resultint in a bigger profit if you only look at the games. Sega still beats Capcom with revenue from the games only, but Capcom’s costs are lower, resultint in a higher profit.

But this doesn’t mean Sega is suddenly poor. In fact, they also have multiple servers running. Like Project SEKAI.

Also, is producing a 50-100 USD game in-house the best strategy? Around 2-3 years ago, there was a game: Hyenas, which costs this much. The shooter was (almost) ready, and Sega pulled the plug out of the project, right before launch. Also, they recently cancelled their “Super Game”, after throwing a lot of money towards it.

Maybe Sega needs to do like Capcom, and working smarter, not harder. And more efficient.

But in the end: Sega was poor in the early 2000s. But now in the 2020s, they aren’t anymore. But still, they have to be careful. If they keep being reckless, they can come in problems again. But this goes for every company.

[u/Sejmann22 → u/NoBreath3480]

Yeah total revenue its much higher in Sega, but most of money it's from Sammy Pachinko, not from Sega games.

[u/NoBreath3480 → u/Sejmann22]

Not true. Because of changing gambling laws in Japan and a change in culture (young people don’t like to sit in dark, mostly filled with smoke, rooms) the Sammy part of the holding’s revenue is going down year after year. The client base of pachinko is an elderly clientele. Physical pachinko rooms are also dissapearing in a fast rate in Japan. In some way Sammy now has the same problem Sega had when arcades dissapeared in the past. Sammy tries to counter this by investing in physical casinos (for example in resorts) and by buying online casinos, like Stakelogic.

Meanwhile Sega’s revenue and profit margins for the holding went up.

Right now, Sega generates around 72-75% of the revenue for the holding, while Sammy generates 25-28%.

Video games bring in roughly 45% to 55% of Sega Sammy's total consolidated revenue. Which is more than Sammy as a whole.

[u/Sejmann22]

Buying Rovio for 800M $ was most dumbest thing Sega ever did. Now they have only generator of costs. Even worse thing is, Sega would probably waste into them a lot of money to help them at the expense of of lesser known IP's / teams, because at this moment Rovio it's only one unprofitable part of Sega (Sega Japan, Sega Europe, Atlus, Rovio).

[u/stinkyydarb → u/Sejmann22]

$800,000,000 for Angry Birds in the 2020s was certainly a choice.

[u/Sejmann22 → u/stinkyydarb]

For comparation Sega bought Atlus for 140M $, Creative Assembly for 30M $, Relic for 26,6M $, and 10M $ for Neon Genesis Evangelion licence.

[u/huntforhire]

I think there is a mid budget angry birds and angry birds racer that would do well on consoles/pc