Update: It should be noted that this is based on the November 2025 report. We should get a clearer picture when the latest report comes out later this month
SEGA says that while feedback for Sonic Racing CrossWorlds has been overwhelmingly positive, sales of the game have failed to meet internal expectations. The company said it hopes to sell an additional one million units within this fiscal year and presumably the plan is to develop additional characters and tracks, which the company has been doing with the Season Pass.
Now, I’d like to talk about Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds: It has received high ratings, scoring over 80 on Metascore at “Metacritic” and earning an “Overwhelmingly Positive* rating on Steam’s customer reviews. We recently announced that worldwide cumulative sales have surpassed 1 million units. However, initial performance did not meet our expectations, and we are aiming to sell approximately another 1 million units within this fiscal year. We aim to sustain long-term sales by encouraging players to enjoy the game over time through the continued support of the title including ongoingrelease of additional downloadable content.
What kind of high expectations were they expecting? The game was loved by fans and bought by many. Most people even agree it was better than Mario Kart’s new outing which was a surprising first.
In comparison Mario Kart World sold 2 Million… In Japan alone. Crossworld last reported sold 1 million worldwide.
Maybe they’re expectations were a bit high, but it’s not hard to see why they thought they would’ve sold more.
MKW as of 2025 has sold a total of 9.57 million copies, it’s single handedly one of, if not the highest attach rate for a game ever. On the back of Switch 2 being the fastest selling console ever. It’s always crazy to me hearing people are upset about MKW and compare it to a 12yr old game that got both a Deluxe edition and drip-fed content for years. Give MKW that same amount of time and energy and watch. As for Sonic, the industry and fans alike continue to believe he’s a mascot in more than name only. He’s never been in a good game, he never sold consoles, he’s absolutely Mario’s contemporary in merchandising and movies, but as a gaming icon he’s just a reminder of repeated failure and his speed is the problem.
I know, that’s why I said MKW sold 2 million in Japan alone. While Sonic has only sold 1 million worldwide.
I have no beef with Mario Kart World. Hell, I thought it was ok.
As for Sonic, he’s not Mario, of course, he’ll never do those numbers, but just about every mainline Sonic game has done at least 2 million. So again, it’s not hard to see why that was their expectations.
Normally when they sell those numbers it meets expectations my guess is the overspending on guest characters for this, influencers like RDC and xQc promoting this, and of course reveals at expensive shows like SGF, Gamescom, and TGA. No one wanted this in my opinion. Shadow Generations I believe sold around 1 million and did great just an expansion to a remaster/port.
Yes because Mario Kart World was award at the Game Awards as the best family or racing game while Sonic Racing Crossworlds did not. The game was going to be nominated at the show, but a fan on social media notice that it was delisted in the nomination list before the show started but Sonic Rumble did made its appearance for best mobile game after multiple delays it has suffer to rebalance it’s game experience and gameplay mechanics from glitches and bug problems.
I get that people was upset over Mario Kart World due to the intermissions routes in online mode because they want to play the classic and modern tracks alone in every online matches instead of facing intermission routes by driving to another track. The sales for the game was one of the best Switch 2 games in Nintendo’s history and the console itself has sold 3.5 millions units globally in just 4 days which is crazy.
Sonic has good games problem is not recently and Sega caters to an audience of boomers who don’t like Sonic or don’t like Sonic post Adventure just turn Sonic back to the “dark era” and it fixes it. Remake the Adventure games go back to Sonic being a shonen anime type story instead of what it is now. Sonic did sell Genesis and Dreamcast years ago and is a gaming icon, as for mascot I do agree Kiryu became more Sega’s mascot in recent years but they’re fumbling that too losing the guys who made the original Yakuza games and altering the story with remakes and prequels
This is the most factual comment so far.
Sonic has been nothing but a bitter rival to Mario since the beginning. People actually thought this game had a chance of outselling mkw just because the echo chamber on YouTube and social media kept saying it was “better” when it is actually not.
its called opinions
Sonic is still super relevant as a name just the brand is handled poorly. Gen Z loves Sonic they are just ignored they want Sonic X and “dark era” Sonic back. Honestly these L’s and your comments about Sonic need to reach Sega so a change takes place. Sonic Boom is trash and so was Prime, Frontiers is bad, Shadow Generations good but story is bad, and Crossworlds is trash.
If by “factual” you mean fervent and ignorant fanboyism. .. but you seem knee deep in that as well. How sad and pathetic for you.
Sonic has good games Sonic Heroes, Sonic Unleashed, Sonic Battle, Sonic Advanced series, Sonic Adventure series, Sonic Rush, Sonic Riders series, Secret Rings, 2006, Black Knight, and Shadow no matter what people say.
LMAO forgetting that people have adored shadow generations, frontiers and crossworlds, also saying he’s never been in a good game is just a flatout lie
adventure, adventure 2, rush, advance, colors, generations, unleashed, kinda sounds like you’re in the same camp as IGN
Adored? No. Like yes or in Crossworlds case pretend to like it because they dislike Mario Kart World for whatever reason.
bro the sonic hasnt left his base in YEARS LOOOL. Duh people adore it.
Sonic consistently sales anywhere between 500k-4m. When he breaks that 5m+ line, then we can gauge his popularity. He’s one of the only series this generation that didnt gain from larger install bases or crossplatform selling.
Even crash bandicoot remastered did more copies (20 MILLION)
Zelda broke its record with botw (34 MILLION), outselling OOT and TPs 7million.
“never been in a good game” okay IGN member
forgetting adventure, adventure 2, colors, generations, unleashed, rush, advance, sonic 3, mania
Frontiers was Mid and CrossWorlds is souless with no passion, somebody here used the right word of flanderization, modern Sonic games aren’t even guaranteed great music anymore and thst is very true for CrossWorlds and the base game stages aren’t Sonic enough. The original Generations was during the Wii era, didn’t even really remaster the Sonic Portion graphically or performance worse though now you can die by a accidental Drop Dash. Shadow’s part was pretty great though but they sound like they want to go backwards to more Sonic Frontiers due to it having a little success compared to the average Sonic game.
Saying Sonic has never had a good game or sold a console is a wild thing to say. Sonic has been in a lot of amazing games. And he absolutely sold consoles. Mega Drive/Genesis gave Nintendo it first real competition and it was mostly because of Sonic. At one point, SEGA had more than 50% of the console market in the US. It wouldn’t have happened without Sonic.
Sonic has definitely had and downs. The most recent games, Shadow Generations and now Crossworlds are both universally well recieved.
This article wasn’t about MKW, but since you brought it up, many prefer Crossworlds over MKW. A lot of World’s numbers are from the fact that its a pack-in with Switch 2. It would have sold a lot either way of course. Mario Kart is a household name.
Crossworlds was just priced too high from the start. They should have been more aggressive if they wanted higher sales. The price was the biggest criticism I heard of the game, otherwise people love it.
I’m sorry, but your terrible opinion makes it clear you are quite ignorant. Sonic absolutely sold the SEGA Genesis (objectively), and Sonic 1-3 and Sonic and Knuckles were great.
Maybe turn your blatant and laughable Nintendo fanboyism off for a second and actually take a dose of reality lmao.
You’re either rage baiting or just lying, because Sonic has had numerous good games AND is the main reason the Sega Genesis actually succeeded. What are you on about lol
“He’s never been in a good game.” I know Sonic has been in some bad games (Sonic 06 being one of the worst)… But never been in a good game? What about The classic Genesis games, Sonic CD, the Adventure games, Colors, Generations, Mania? Are you sure?
I like how confidently wrong you are. Fastest selling console means nothing when no one is actually playing the thing. Still seeing switch 2s in-store and guess what, I’m still seeing MKWs in abundance on shelves too now that Nintendo decides bundling it with consoles was too generous. Meanwhile I don’t see Crossworlds on shelves, for ALL platforms.
And for the record, sonic has and still does have great games, either they aren’t your thing or you suck at them and would rather whine than admit it. Play sonic x shadow generations or hell even frontiers and maybe you can say something.
The amount of minutes played contradicts your claim that no one is playing the Switch 2.
Simply put, Sega thought CrossWorlds didn’t do enough.
I mean- no shit. Almost everyone that bought a Switch 2 bought the bundle that came with it because it was cheaper to do that than buy the game separately.
That’s like saying Wii Sports has a crazy attach rate.
Common sense. Just give me a Sonic Riders remake or collection over this even worse they wasted money on guest characters. I’d love a new Riders but Sega’s won’t make it or more so current Sonic leadership.
Expectations I don’t think we’re high in terms of expecting higher than the money spent they are just stupid they wasted money on so much guests, reveals, and influencers to push this crap a game no one wanted. It was going to flop to my knowledge these cart racing Sonic games never do well. Sonic Riders I think would make more sense even if they wanted to play it safe just do a remaster/port of the old games to test waters there is Y2K nostalgia and demand for it also to be safer no guest characters and expensive reveals like at Geoff’s shows or wasting money on influencers. Mario dominates this genre and will not be beat yes bundling the game with the console helps but people will still buy it and sales show. Even worse Mario Kart is exclusive, Sonic is not and got blown out by comparison.
I won’t buy it until the Denuvo is off the PC version.
“Most people”? Obviously not if it’s sold like garbage 😂
Sales figures are king, nothing else matters, and Sonic has failed again lmaoooo
Maybe it’s time to put the blue trashhog out of his misery 😊
LOL you would love the videos I made on YouTube about Sonic and Mario.
I don’t know of a single Sonic game that is worth playing. Shadow the hedgehog on the GameCube had some guns in it which made it somewhat appealing.
Look i dont like sonic either much these days but a single one is a stretch lol
the classic 1,2,3&k + mania, adventure 1 and 2, heroes despite the jank, and generations/x shadow are solid games.
Advanced and Rush are also solid. the rest are trash. Especially Colors, the game that ruined the 2010s.
Sonic sales have been awful because the brand is handled so poorly. He is popular but like you said sales are awful time for current leadership to go Ian Flynn, Aaron Webber, and Takeshi Iizuka. They will try to pretend niche comics sell well when once again its niche and has sold worse since 2020. Sonic with a anime and games like the 2000’s feel and tone would bring the brand back.
“and bought by many.”
Apparently not, since it sold only 1m worldwide.
“Most people even agree it was better than Mario Kart’s new outing which was a surprising first.”
Except most people talking that:
a) didn’t have a Switch 2 to begin with
b) were at the NS2 hate bandwagon (despite Crossworlds’ pricing being one of the most absurd ever for what it offers)
The honeymoon phase is over. People are noticing the game is soulless, offers too little for the absurd price they’re putting (to the point I’m betting most of the sales happened when it entered sales – oddly it went to sale too fast for a new release, which should tell us something), the gameplay is a mess and worse than Transformed, the characters were done dirty (Amy’s dialogues are horrible, it’s ridiculous that not even Sega-owned characters like Joker and the Werehog don’t have voiced dialogues, not to mention the DLC like SpongeBob and TMNT).
Only internet clowns who hate Nintendo pretended to love this game. Truth is… it’s a mediocre racing game that tries to rely on cross over characters to sell well.
I guarantee you 90% of the people who purchased the game are not playing it.
I agree on that. None of them are playing it or bought DLC. Should have brought back Sonic Riders
Yeah it is better in Mario Kart World. Not because Crossworlds doesn’t have the open world formula like World does, it’s just that they need to hear many fans feedback regarding the game’s content, mechanics and it’s visual animation graphics. I’m gonna be honest here with you. Team Sonic Racing is still the best racing game in Sonic’s history, but it feels like the franchise is really falling behind. Sonic was supposed to be in 1st place and I understand he doesn’t like to be second or be outshine by Mario or Pokemon franchises.
“Team Sonic Racing is still the best racing game in Sonic’s history”
You wrote “Sonic & All-Stars Racing: Transformed” wrong, champ. TSR is a mediocre game with too few characters that started the downfall of Sonic racing games (or exacerbated it after Free Riders, dunno).
What I meant was it still the best racing game but it’s still lacking of content, voice acting and it’s rough mechanics which is a shameless. Not trying to be on the bad side here.
Riders is far superior.
Riders is the best Sonic racing game not this garbage. Why does he need a car he is faster than a car?
I get what I mean but I can’t honestly say that TSR is anything besides “mediocre”. I think Crossworlds wins by a small margin but when I look at Transformed and, then, at TSR, I can’t believe they looked at Transformed and thought “let’s remove everything that made Transformed good and create a new game”.
Sonic piloting a car makes no sense in a game where 99% of the roster is Sonic characters. Even the poorly handed excuse of “making things fair” doesn’t cut it because, previously, a lot of characters could keep up with Sonic anyway (hell, Knuckles and Rouge ran faster than Sonic in SAD2 and CREAM could run at fast speeds in Advance 2).
What?! No Sonic Riders is WAY better both the original and Zero Gravity. This is garbage!
What fans? It was not loved maybe some people like it but no not universally. The game flopped not high expectations just way too expensive look at the promotion and guest characters that is a arm and leg? They have a Saudi partnership I have to wonder if thats where the money came from. No Mario Kart World sold way better despite what losers on Reddit and morons say it is liked better, just because they tried to pretend Sonic racing was better doesn’t mean it was true. Sega paid influencers to play the game another reason it flopped.
Who are most people? Most people probably translates to the million people who bought it. However, Mario kart world which only sold on the switch is almost at 10 million copies. I’m sorry but Mario kart world is in a league of it’s own.
The RRP is too high for a kart racer. That, and it follows the awful Team Sonic Racing which unimpressed most. It should be a £40 game.
Guess there’s just not enough of you guys out there.
Personally I’m waiting for the Switch 2 release since I didn’t want to buy the upgrade for Switch 1 digitally
That’s been out for a while
Every Company Wants their game to be live service these days and rival the money, success, and user base as tanes life Fortnite. I’ve seen other companies like Square Enix call games failure even though they sold amazingly well. It comes to show why games aren’t about games anymore. Only money. This Sonic Cash Grav included.
What no Square games flop 1 million copies is not making the cost back and profit. You people are on strong cope companies are not making their money back and higher costs now with unions and employees wanting higher pay does not help
Square Called the Tomb Raider Games they made a Financial Failure before selling away the IP.
Yes because they expected higher sales from a western game even worse they invested in multiple. Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, Hitman, Thief, and Sleeping Dogs around the early 2010s they all flopped. I love Sleeping Dogs but it didn’t sell like 5 million it sold I think 1.2 million. Then more flops came in afterwards.
Because they weren’t making the numbers Square needed at the time. It’s simple as that.
People seem to forget that videogame is a business first and foremost. If something doesn’t sell, there’s no reason for them to continue making a game of it. TR was flopping and they were at the start of a financial crisis so they decided to sell the IP.
The Square Enix Tomb Raider games sold over forty million units
Yes because they need to make money the whole purpose of this also Square calks games failures because they are the current games in their words do not make the budget back that is why they are failures they did not sell “amazingly well” they flopped but you people like to spin narratives when the trash you like flops even see you idiots attacking shareholders for expecting return on investments. Gaming has changed the future is different these companies will go under.
Really need to cut their budgets.
The issue was all the expensive guest characters, wasting money on expensive influencers to promote it, and then the expensive shows they spent on like Geoff Keighly’s shows. No one really wanted this game.
sonic is running on the hamster wheel.
Imitations always enhance the value of the original.
I didn’t buy the game. I didn’t care for most of the base game’s levels, music, flanderization of characters since Sonic Colors, some of the adjustments they made to character designs, how the head of Sonic Team is like “We’re keeping Characters like Mighty separate from Modern Sonic”, or the story. I did like how they brought two characters from the IDW Comic though. The game feels like a souless corporate product rather than a game that is art with heart and soul.
Idw comics are soulless too just made by weird power hungry mentally ill people. Keep that away from Sonic. I agree Colors was the downfall and it has not gotten better Ian Flynn can not write both Shadow Generations and Frontiers were trash stories fire him, Webber, and Iizuka bring in a new writer from Japan or Shiro Maekawa, the current team wants to do Adventure style games so let them. The downfall began when Sega’s listened to weird millennial Sonic haters who just did it because everyone else did and had fake opinions just saying things to sound smart attacking anything Sonic they hated Heroes which resulted in Colors and the wisps removing the extra characters since those people who don’t buy Sonic games hated it, same way they hate Shadow, then the writing they got Happy Tree Friends writers in to make something up resulting in the bad era. “Dark era” was the best era Sonic X, Riders, Battle, 2006, Unleashed, Heroes, Sonic was doing great even Shadow sold well despite what people say. If Sonic got back to that it would be great not the current era, let CyberConnect2 make a remake of Sonic Battle or sequel, let Platinum Games make a Shadow 2 and Silver game, RGG wants to make a Sonic game let them finally make a open world Sonic game with city locations to run around, obvious bring back Sonic Riders and remake SA1 and 2 with the 4Kids cast.
Sonic is currently running on the training wheels because SEGA was trying to meet fans expectations to rival other popular games in order to increase its userbase formula and mechanics like Fortnite, Overwatch and Pokemon Unite. I could have sworn Crossworlds sales rate was reported to be sold in 1 million units worldwide in 2025.
1 million is not enough look how much they wasted on guests and promotion. Also fans wanted Riders back instead they make this something almost no one buys. Sega never listens to fans unless they are 40 year olds who stopped playing Sonic around SA1. Still no Adventure remakes, Heroes remakes, return to anime style writing, new Riders, Sonic Battle, Adventure 3, they just have bad leadership. They lost Nagoshi too.
People been talking about those remakes for while and it was mention once before but then it stopped for a short time. As for Sonic Adventure 3, I don’t think its not going to happen according to lizuka himself.
What fans? What fans wanted this? I am curious now if Frontiers 2 flops no one talks about the first game only selling well because it went on discount to $20 less than a week after release. Fans want Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 remade and an Adventure 3 they don’t get that instead they get Frontiers and this. Many ask for Riders back instead they get this. It’s not the actual fans it’s whoever they are listening too maybe out of touch influencers that haven’t played a Sonic game since the 90’s and never really liked it. Ask me peak Sonic was 2000’s after that downhill and with nostalgia those games or types of games would do better now games that older people who were not Sonic fans hated or slandered just because are now praised Shadow, Adventure 2, Heroes, Riders, 2006, and Unleashed if they go back to that Sonic would be in a better place instead that audience old Gen Z like in many other entertainment IP’s and companies are ignored in favor of millennials been that way for over 20 years.
“B-b-but Crossworlds is SO MUCH BETTER than MKW, even if they did a poor job with the characters (Amy’s dialogues are a borefest, not to mention the DLCs not having voices at all, including the characters Sega already owns), the pricing is absurd and their post-launch content is a hot mess (no, people care less about the characters passes than they think)”.
Sorry, Mario Kart World is not only the better game overall but it’ll have more staying power, despite whatever the haters might say.
It’s time they finally fire Iizuka, Flynn, and Webber
I love Sonic I do not like the way the modern brand has been for almost 2 decades. Mario is the better and bigger brand handled much better.
please keep the corny hate comments that are mad people prefer sonic over mario coming, i am loving all of it
No duh but all the copeheads kept lying saying it did amazing. Everyone told you it flopped
Can we get Sonic Riders back now instead of bad expensive guest filled Mario Kart clone that normally no one buys or plays
actually plenty of people play it!
Nope its a flop according to this article and pretty sure it fell off after it released.
A game that only sold a million in a multiplatform release has hardly “plenty of people playing it”.
Crossworlds is a flop, through and through. Plus most of these sales are from the first time the game went into sale.
I have both games and prefer the look and feel of Mario kart world. It’s just a more polished game all around. Segas Sonic cross worlds looks like crap and plays like crap.
https://youtube.com/shorts/zxQNySYLWOM?si=yzNmn5w4kITxxWsa
It was very poorly promoted. I’m not the target demographic but I heard next to nothing in terms of advertising. Picked it up on sale, it’s a pretty good racer.
It was at numerous shows and was advertised. All the guest characters were revealed at shows Pac Man, Mega Man, and Spongebob and numerous streamers were paid to play it.
Wouldn’t it be more fair to compare the sales of Sonic Crossworlds to Kirby Air Riders instead of MKW?
Another game that’s better. Sega just needs to bring back Sonic Riders.
Does anyone else think that game developers, especially Sega as recently, have unreasonably high expectations?
Good, maybe now, Sega will make normal games again… oh, who am I kidding? Sonic Team is dead and Sega sucks even mire than ever.
Sonic, as a series, would /definitely/ be selling much more with more underage trans characters and gay representation… Cough. According to Reddit, the lack of sales had nothing to do with the soullessness of the Sonic franchise.
It’s also a 70-dollar Sonic game with a 90-dollar season pass. It’s just too expensive for the average person.
“But Mario Kart World is 80!” I hear people shout inevitably.
The difference is that game launched bundled with a brand new console that just released six months ago. Sonic is not and does not have the popularity that Mario does to make a game worth that price. Sega should have made it cheaper. Oh and the roster is lame and full of crossover slop I and many others don’t care about. This game could have celebrated Sonic’s history with fan favorites like Marine, Honey, Chaos, and Mephiles but no they just had to go the boring Fortnite route.
Instead of deleting the clickbaity, factually incorrect news, you added a little note to the post as if that’s going to deter people from spreading misinformation.
Nothing’s inaccurate about the report. The game fell short of expectations.