Sega calls out sluggish Rovio performance as it eyes turnaround

• Sega’s latest financial year saw diminishing operating income after an impairment loss on Rovio.
• The Angry Birds maker will restructure, then focus on building its brand.

Rovio has been partially blamed for declining profits in Sega’s latest financial year resulting from its "soft" performance and an impairment loss.

The Angry Birds developer was named 15 times in Sega’s presentation document detailing the full fiscal year. It was described as "sluggish" after Sega failed to create economic value through collaboration with its subsidiary.

It’s been confirmed that Rovio will undergo "its own restructuring" and then aim for a steady earnings improvement and continue with efforts towards building games-as-a-service up globally. The studio will focus on Angry Birds, its "mainstay IP", and on licensing out.

One day before these financial results were shared publicly, Angry Birds 2 launched a crossover event with Sybo’s Subway Surfers, one of the most-downloaded mobile games of all time.

The Angry Birds brand can also be seen in Kuro Games' Wuthering Waves, depicted on its recently implemented Expedition Motorbike.

Rovio, Sonic Rumble and more

Across Sega’s entire business, the group generated ¥487.5 billion ($3.1bn) in its fiscal year ended March 31st, 2026, just shy of its ¥490bn ($3.1bn) forecast. This still represented an increase of almost 14% year-over-year. Ordinary income also grew, up 2% to ¥54.2bn ($343.7 million).

Operating income declined for another year, though at a slower rate, down 2% to ¥47.1bn ($298.7m).

Existing free-to-play titles and subscription services both performed "steadily", as did DLC and transmedia animations. However, new free-to-play titles struggled over the year, with Sonic Rumble highlighted for its "weak performance". After years in soft launch and a delayed global release, the title has struggled to meet expectations and recently underwent a rebrand, renamed as Sonic Rumble Party.

In its report, Sega noted that over 100 free-to-play development personnel have now transferred into its full game development team.

Looking forward, Sega expects Rovio to launch Angry Birds 2 in mainland China, release new Angry Birds games within the current fiscal year and leverage the Angry Birds Movie 3 in live games. The film is expected to be a "full-scale transmedia expansion" of the IP, as the first Angry Birds movie post-acquisition by Sega.

Sega has found its own success in the transmedia space with the Sonic the Hedgehog movie franchise. Over the last fiscal year, Sega’s licensing revenue associated with transmedia development grew by almost 32%.

After Q3's results, Sega called Rovio's Beacon tech suite "indispensable" to the subsidiary's own games, but said it hasn’t served Sega's catalogue as expected.