Sega made an $18m loss in the first half of FY2015

Sega made a ¥2 billion loss in the first half of the fiscal year after releasing just a single console game in the second quarter.

In the six month period ended September 30, 2014, Sega earned ¥154.2 billion ($1.38 billion) in revenue, down 5 per cent year-on-year. Operating profit was down 72 per cent to ¥3.45 billion ($30.9 million), and the company made an overall loss of ¥2 billion ($17.9 million).

Sega's games division contributed less than a third of total revenue, largely due to a paucity of new releases. Only Persona 4 Arena Ultimax was launched in the second quarter, and its release was restricted to Japan for the accounting period. Ultimax sold 230,000 units before the end of September, taking Sega's total packaged sales for the first half of the fiscal year to 4.1 million - 2.72 million of which were catalogue sales.

Sega's games division earned ¥48.2 billion ($439 million) in revenue, up 10 per cent year-on-year. Digital games contributed the majority of that figure, with ¥21.9 billion ($196 million) in revenue, while packaged games earned ¥15.3 billion ($137 million).

That is likely to improve dramatically for Sega's nine-month results, however, as they will include Alien: Isolation, which launched a week after the accounting period closed.