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Despite throwing shade at Nintendo ahead of its release, Sega has deemed Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds' sales to be below expectations.
In Sega Sammy's latest financial results the company singles out two of its titles that it deems to have "fallen short of expectation" when it comes to sales, despite good reviews for both. These titles are Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds and Shinobi: Art of Vengeance, which garnered Metacritic scores of 82 and 87 respectively when they were released last year.
Sega confirmed earlier this year (thanks, Nintendo Life) that Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds was still hovering around the previously announced one million copies sold mark, and given that Sonic x Shadow Generations the year prior had sold over three million, and Sonic Frontiers sold just under five million, Sega clearly had higher expectations for the project.
Last year was one of the biggest years for the kart racer genre to date – granted, it would've been huge with the launch of the first Mario Kart game in 11 years in the form of Mario Kart World alone. But Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds and Kirby Air Riders also released in 2025, meaning the typically niche genre was pretty crowded.
Ahead of launch, Sega threw a bit of shade at Nintendo with an ad making fun of "the open road," quite obviously in reference to Mario Kart World's open-world pivot and the prevalence of controversial intermission tracks in the game. Plus, the game's creative director Masaru Kobayakawa spoke about the Sonic Racing rewarding skill instead of luck, which also felt like a reference to Mario Kart.
According to Nintendo, as of March 31 this year, Mario Kart World had sold just under 15 million copies, and sure, it may have been helped along by the somewhat generous console bundle that arrived alongside the launch of the Switch 2, but Mario Kart always does well. However, the way more niche Kirby Air Riders is also seemingly out in front of Sonic Racing, at 1.87 million copies sold.
Personally, I had all three kart racers on my top 10 games of last year, so for me it was a three cakes situation, but I definitely didn't think it was the best time for Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds to release. But given CrossWorlds released on seven platforms, I can somewhat understand why Sega would be disappointed.
