Sonic the Hedgehog maker focuses on apps amid mobile growth

TOKYO – Sega Sammy Holdings, the Japanese publisher of the Sonic the Hedgehog, has tasked almost a third of its game unit’s developers with creating applications for smartphones, the Bloomberg news agency reported.

The Tokyo-based entertainment company has increased the portion of its 2,000 developers designing titles for phones and tablets as more gamers go mobile, Mr Hideki Okamura, president of game unit Sega, said in an interview. Mr Okamura did not say if Sega intends to develop mobile versions of its popular PC and console titles, such as Virtua Fighter and Phantasy Star. Company spokesman Yasushi Nagumo said no Sonic titles are in the works.

“As the new devices have come out and created a market for smartphone applications, we’re putting a lot of resources into that,” Mr Okamura said on the sidelines of the annual Tokyo Game Show. “We’re shifting developers from other areas.”

Sega Sammy, which was formed a decade ago when pachinko-machine maker Sammy bought video-game company Sega, has seen sales of packaged games decline as players shift from traditional game consoles to smartphones. The game maker sold 8.7 million traditional video games in the 12 months ended in March, down from 10.8 million in the previous year, the company said in its annual report.

A shift to mobile gaming will help spur a 29 percent increase in video-game and other consumer-product sales to 128.5 billion yen (S$1.5 billion) for the fiscal year ending March, the company forecast. It expects operating profit at the consumer business to more than triple to 6.6 billion yen.