SEGA shutting down service for Initial D Perfect Shift Online at the end of June

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SEGA is pulling the plug on Initial D Perfect Shift Online. Today, the company announced that service for its game will end on June 30. SEGA stated that as it reflected on offering a satisfactory service for customers and the difficult situation, they decided to end the service.

Players will still be able to play Initial D Perfect Shift Online’s offline mode once June 30 has passed. However, if they delete any related data, the game is lost forever.

Initial D Perfect Shift Online seemed to have been a success for SEGA having racked up over 500,000 downloads. There was also talk about a sequel, though we haven’t heard much about it since December.

Thanks to Thiago H for the tip.

Source 1, Source 2

More: Initial D Perfect Shift Online, Japan, SEGA

Kobe

All I read was “SEGA shutting down”
TalesOfBS

So it was a success for Sega, and yet they decided to pull the plug?
- sonicfan1373
  
  Yeah, like you, I’m not sure if we can count it as a success. With these free-to-play games there are plenty of people, in fact I would guess it is the majority, who download and play but do not spend a dime on in-game purchases; thus, success of these games cannot be determined by download numbers alone (something that a lot of pro-mobile and pro-free-to-play analysts often fail to mention); of course the higher the download number, the higher the chance that there will be more people that purchase content (assuming the game is decent or addictive enough to attract a paying audience, and the content is priced within the reach of the audience), but Sega does not tell us how many people actually purchased something or the amount of revenue the game generates.
  With all of that being said, it is quite possible that the game was successful but it dropped off. The popularity and profitability of these free-to-play games seems to be on a curve where the game’s popularity and profitability initially grows, stabilizes, and then declines, so if this was indeed the case (and looking at most trendy mobile games, it appears to be at least part of it), then it would suggest that the game is on the decline phase and it explains why the online service for game is being discontinued now.
Hermione Granger

YES!, another free2play crap game bite the dust… good riddance!
Aline Piroutek

I was completely addicted to this game. It is a shame it won’t have options to win Money/cards without connecting to the internet.