Sumo Digital’s latest Sonic-themed racing game may have performed well in the UK Charts – as well as our hearts (check out our review here) – but Team Sonic Racing has been having a rough time of it in the US, with the game only just managing to enter the Top 20 Best Selling Titles for the month of May.
Accounting for both digital and physical sales, the official NPD US Sales Chart lists the racer at #19 for the last month. It seems that its ‘new game smell’ hasn’t been enough to convert Sonic’s usually-trustworthy Nintendo userbase either, with Switch owners still opting for the two-year-old Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (which sits at #11).
It’s a surprising performance for the game, given that the Sonic franchise performs strongest in North America. Outside of YouTube trailers showcasing the game’s incredible soundtrack, there seemed to be little outward promotion of Team Sonic Racing ahead of release – which may explain things, but we obviously can’t say for sure.
On the other hand, Team Sonic Racing did release quite late into May, so a full month’s worth of sales haven’t been taken into account here. Hopefully the game will fare better in June – in the meantime, for clarity here is the full NPD Top 20 for the US during the month of May.
- Mortal Kombat 11
- Days Gone
- Total War: Three Kingdoms
- Rage 2 *
- Grand Theft Auto V
- Super Smash Bros. Ultimate *
- Red Dead Redemption II
- MLB 19: The Show
- Minecraft #
- NBA 2K19
- Mario Kart 8 *
- Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 ^
- Call of Duty: Black Ops IIII ^
- New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe *
- Marvel’s Spider-Man
- The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild *
- Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Siege
- Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey
- Team Sonic Racing
- Yoshi’s Crafted World *
(*) Digital sales not included
(^) PC digital sales not included
(#) Minecraft digital sales on PS4 and Xbox One included
Source: Resetera
It’s apparent that this game wasn’t given much of a budget to work with in terms of content and advertisement, which is a shame. It’s a really fun kart racer and the team mechanic really does make for a fun experience you don’t really get with Mario Kart.
Sadly Sonic as a franchise is dying off.
Sure Sonic Mania did well but Sonic Forces didn’t sell great, this game has gotten mixed reviews and has sold poorly in the US (it did ok in the UK but the US and Japanese marketplaces are much more important to publishers)
Plus the awful movie trailer is really putting Sonic in a bad light to the public.
Sega should
1) Just stick to 2D games, forget 3D as Sonic Team don’t have the talent to make them.
2) Paramount should just snuggle the film out into Netflix and skip a cinematic release. A movie that is a flop on Netflix will go a lot more unscathed than a cinematic disaster that gets planned by every critic and becomes a financial failure.