With more than 20 titles in recent release (dating back to last year) across all three next-generation consoles, Sega has a widespread lineup of platformer, action and sports games. The company has nabbed several top considerations with strong platformer debuts on GameCube, but just as its character-based entries have soared on Nintendo's console so have its sports offerings tanked. The company's NFL and NBA 2K2 and 2K3 titles have performed much stronger on Sony's PlayStation 2 console and shared solid success on Xbox.
Sega's Sonic Adventure 2 is not only the company's biggest selling game of the year with almost 500,000 sold, it is in fact GameCube's most bought title of 2002 (through August). It's likely that Nintendo's Super Mario Sunshine, which debuted in late August to some 350,000 in sales during its first week, will take the lead if it hasn't already, but for now Sonic is still king. The game, a port of an old Dreamcast offering, has sold upward of one million units around the world since its debut. For the record, it has only been available in the US since February. It has even outsold the PS2 Virtua Fighter 4 in America in spite of Sony's comparatively gargantuan user base. With that, it appears the age of the mascot title is still strong, especially one as widely known as Sega's hedgehog.
It's intriguing that the strongest selling GameCube title of the year, though, still lags behind the best selling Xbox one. Halo has sold through an additional 630,000 units in 2002, even after a rock solid debut last holiday. By comparison, Super Smash Bros. Melee is GCN's second best seller with 455,000 pieces. PS2's biggest overall seller is, of course, Grand Theft Audto 3, with more than two million units.
Sega's Super Monkey Ball, which debuted last year to strong sales, sold through an additional 100,000 units this year. The game has managed to breeze past sales of technology-heavy Xbox showings such as Jet Set Radio Future, 90,000 units, and Gun Valkyrie, 50,000 pieces. However, the sequel, which debuted in August, premiered to less than 30,000 in sales. SMB2 shipped on the same day as Super Mario Sunshine, a possible explanation for the slow start.
It's clear that Sega's sports offerings are best served on Sony's system. The publisher has enjoyed broader success with NBA 2K2/3 and NFL 2K2/3 on PS2, though Xbox sales have also proved surprisingly strong considering its smaller user base. GameCube sales have lagged considerably. For instance, whereas NBA 2K2 sold 375,000 units on PS2 and 90,000 on Xbox, it managed only 50,000 on GameCube. Similarly, while NFL 2K3 debuted to almost 90,000 units on PS2 and 60,000 on Xbox, it garnered less than 8,000 on Nintendo's console. This poor showing could likely be attributed to a slightly later debut on GCN, but even with that noted the figure is incredibly small by comparison. Our only conclusion is that gamers generally perceive Xbox and especially PS2 as stronger sports machines. This perception has little to do with GameCube's capability as it does its image. Interestingly, it appears that Sega's NBA 2K2/3 titles are outselling its football offerings on all three platforms.
No Sega titles have yet sold one million units exclusively in the US.
