Wii Posted January 30, 2015 Posted January 30, 2015 Not sure where to put this. Here's probably best because this game caused it to happen. Sega cutting 300 jobs as it prepares for digital, non-console future Around 300 staff are to be offered early retirement following plans to completely restructure Sega’s business. “Local organisations managing packaged game software in Western markets will be streamlined”, the company has said, with its San Francisco already confirmed for closure. Sega intends to alter operations to focus on mobile and online PC games, which it deems to be its growth areas, as well as its Sonic and merchandising businesses. The changes are a result of a business analysis conducted by the Group Structure Reform Division, which was formed last May and tasked with improving management efficiency, profitability and restructuring the business. “Voluntary retirement will be solicited in the aforementioned businesses to be withdrawn or consolidated and downsized, while at the same time personnel will be repositioned in digital games and growth areas of Group mainly as development personnel, in order to establish a structure which can constantly generate profits,” Sega said. The decision comes despite the success of Alien: Isolation – which admittedly was somewhat offset by the catastrophic failure of both Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric and Shattered Crystal. http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/sega-cutting-300-jobs-as-it-prepares-for-digital-non-console-future/ I don't know what to say about this. It's sad? Serves you right? That's got to be the end of Wii U support at least, probably 3DS too. If you want your game to do well, why would you give your number 1 franchise out to a crappy developer and then rush out a glitchy mess?
Jimbob Posted January 30, 2015 Posted January 30, 2015 I would say it's a bit of both. It's sad to see a company whom 20 years ago had a console in millions of homes, then leave the console business and go 3rd party. To now going PC, mobile and digital only meaning 300 job redundancies/retirements. Feel sorry for those whom could lose their jobs, but at the same time it serves them right. Bad financial decisions, rushing out games quick with so many bugs (Ubisoft anyone?). Hopefully they can pull themselves back this method, but it will be hard to do.
Ike Posted January 31, 2015 Posted January 31, 2015 I split the post into it's own thread as it probably deserves one rather than being in the Sonic Boom thread and will probably get more discussion out of it.
nekunando Posted January 31, 2015 Posted January 31, 2015 To be honest, I feel like SEGA died well over a decade ago..
Hero-of-Time Posted January 31, 2015 Posted January 31, 2015 Honestly, it's heart breaking seeing Sega go the way it has. They were a massive part of my childhood and it saddens me to see them move away from console gaming. The amount of amazing IPs at their disposal is staggering but today's market has no interest in most of them. It doesn't help that they have ran Sonic into the ground, rather than protecting and nurturing the IP. The same could be said for the Shining series. Shining in the Darkness, Shining Force, Shining Holy Ark are all amazing games but they started slapping the Shining name on highly average RPGs and people were turned off by the series. The biggest kick in the nuts in recent times has to be Phantasy Star Online 2 not heading to the West. They teased it multiple times but ultimately it never did arrive and I doubt it ever will. Poor Sega.
Mandalore Posted January 31, 2015 Posted January 31, 2015 People seem to buy Sonic games no matter how dire they are. Probably more the lack of Wii U userbase is what caused Sonic Boom to bomb. Did Sonic Lost World do much better?
Happenstance Posted January 31, 2015 Posted January 31, 2015 Sega arent the company they once were but this is still sad. The Mega Drive is still probably my favourite console and has my fondest gaming memories linked to it.
Agent Gibbs Posted January 31, 2015 Posted January 31, 2015 It's just terrible how this is going down, they lost their soul years back and have just churned out crap games, sonic generations was their last good game and that seems to be a fluke I'd really hope nintendo would buy their franchises or port pc games to the 3ds
Grazza Posted January 31, 2015 Posted January 31, 2015 There's not much in the gaming world that makes me sadder than the demise of Sega. The Mega Drive was a phenomenal console. People are still making games for it nowadays - not just downloadable, but ones that actually run on it - and when you see what they're getting out of it now they're not limited to small cartridge sizes, it's clear how much more powerful it was than the SNES. Oh sure, my classmates taunted me about how the SNES could do "more colours", but the Mega Drive was the one with the grunt. A clear contender for Best Console Ever. The amount of amazing IPs at their disposal is staggering but today's market has no interest in most of them. Exactly. It fills me with regret that they couldn't fully adapt their franchises into the 3D era (or make new ones that captured people's imaginations as much). Of course, Sega did make plenty of new franchises - they're one of the most adventurous developers ever! - but their skills were in arcade style games. For example, M2 has been one of the best developers (if not the best) on the eShop. Their range of Sega 3D Classics are a labour of love. However, I was playing the brilliant Afterburner II the other day and I thought how perfect it was - how you couldn't surpass it just by making a polygon version (I'm aware of Afterburner Climax but must admit I've never played it). What I find most gutting is how Sega never managed to refine and improve all their classic franchises - Wonder Boy, Golden Axe, Streets of Rage, Shinobi... the list goes on. In my imagination, they could have continued these as 2D series, always improving and improving them. It's crazy - Wonder Boy in particular has potential, I think, yet is only continued through spiritual sequels (the Shantae series) and unofficial projects like this (with the collaboration of Wonder Boy's creator!): http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2015/01/segas_wonder_boy_lives_on_in_monster_boy_and_he_could_be_coming_to_wii_u Instead, Sega seemed to downsize more and more. First, it was "We can't compete in terms of hardware". Then, they seemed to drop more and more franchises until I believe they were only working on a very few - Sonic, Aliens etc. What bothered me about that was the idea that only a few series could be successful when, in my opinion, they could have made any of their good ideas successful if they hadn't tried to match them to the 3D, polygon, big budget standards of the day. Anyway, it's probably more complicated than that. All I know is that gaming was a heck of a lot more colourful in the '90s when Sega was at the forefront.
Debug Mode Posted February 1, 2015 Posted February 1, 2015 I think one of the things that really saddens me is that Sega is not community centric in the West. They should listen to their fans, but obviously not in the way of what they should make, but ask them "What's going right with our games? And what do you feel has gone wrong with (insert title here)". Apart of me is very curious about just how SOA communicates with SOJ, whether or not that has been rebuilt since the infamous Saturn days. SOJ has its problems, but it seems to operate just fine, maybe Sega really needs to have a go at localising one little gem from there at a time rather than none at all, or at least give console manufacturers a chance to have a bidding war to port them over. SOA seems very reliant on blockbuster sales too, which it just isn't attaining, so maybe it's time they start looking to the niche market? Atlus manages it as they have very good IPs, and so does Sega. One thing I'd love for them to do is consider commissioning a new Streets of Rage remake by Bombergames. They slapped that shit down so hard initially, that I don't get why they didn't go the Capcom route (Megaman x Street Fighter) of releasing it for free or trying to talk out a deal to at least distribute it digitally via Steam. Did you know there was originally supposed to be a homebrew version of Streets of Rage remake for the Wii? Why not ask them to give that a go, but with the next generation of digital shops? Why not work with them to get some netcode in the game, as they had to scrap the online multiplayer component due to relative inexperience. There is a group of fans out there doing their best to make a private server for Phantasy Star Online 2 that'll be fully English, are they going to slap that down or finally start thinking of options to finally get it out here in the West? There's an issue about how the F2P system will work over here due to the lack of any feasible collaborations, and the issue of making it subscription based and having a flood of Japanese players abandon the Japanese version so they don't have to worry about the paid elements any more. One final thought. The Mega Drive did as well as it did because of the arcade experience you could have at home as Sega does have very good arcade titles, why not try that in the west? Port them to consoles as arcades are as good as dead here. Ahh one can only wish..
Dcubed Posted February 1, 2015 Posted February 1, 2015 This isn't really a new direction, this has been their goal ever since they restructured themselves back in 2012 (that's what caused Bayonetta 2's original cancellation). They're now taking the next step towards that. They're largely getting out of the packaged games business and are looking to focus on digital and especially PC/mobile. This shift has generally been working out quite well for them and their efforts on PC have not only been of good quality, but have also been commercially successful thus far. I have no complaints if it means that we get more high quality re-releases like Valkyria Chronicles PC! (The Miku games next please SEGA! )
Hero-of-Time Posted February 1, 2015 Posted February 1, 2015 Beautiful post @Grazza. @Debug Mode you make a good point appealing to a niche audience. You have the likes of Gust and Idea Factory churning out JRPGs on a regular basis and it seems to work for them. Why? Simply because they are giving their fans what they want. Sure they don't sell millions upon millions of copies but it must be enough for the companies to turn a profit.
Serebii Posted February 1, 2015 Posted February 1, 2015 Why did they have to buy Atlus just before the final push for this. I'm so sad. SEGA used to be such an awesome developer.
Grazza Posted February 1, 2015 Posted February 1, 2015 SOA seems very reliant on blockbuster sales too, which it just isn't attaining, so maybe it's time they start looking to the niche market? Atlus manages it as they have very good IPs, and so does Sega. In this regard they remind me of Square-Enix - everything nowadays has got to be huge-budget, with the expectation of huge returns. One final thought. The Mega Drive did as well as it did because of the arcade experience you could have at home as Sega does have very good arcade titles, why not try that in the west? Port them to consoles as arcades are as good as dead here. I was researching this the other day and was surprised how close the Mega Drive actually was to the System 16 arcade board. According to Wikipedia, System 16 had a Motorola 68000 @ 10 MHz, whereas the Mega Drive was the same CPU, but clocked at 7.6 MHz. That was definitely its core appeal - the first time home console games genuinely felt like coin-ops.
Goafer Posted February 1, 2015 Posted February 1, 2015 The Saturn and the Dreamcast were the same too in the sense that they were also very similar to Sega's arcade machines of the time. I think the Dreamcast in particular was able to make almost perfect arcade ports. Hopefully this decision means they'll sell the rights to Shenmue and maybe we'll finally get an end to the story. Probably wishful thinking on my part though.
Fierce_LiNk Posted February 1, 2015 Posted February 1, 2015 The Saturn and the Dreamcast were the same too in the sense that they were also very similar to Sega's arcade machines of the time. I think the Dreamcast in particular was able to make almost perfect arcade ports. Hopefully this decision means they'll sell the rights to Shenmue and maybe we'll finally get an end to the story. Probably wishful thinking on my part though. Shenmue III Nokia 3210 exclusive. So close...
Wii Posted February 1, 2015 Author Posted February 1, 2015 Would it have been feasible for Nintendo to buy SEGA back in 2004 before their merger with Sammy? Had it been a few years later it could have happened. Their path of history would have been so much different and most likely brighter had that happened.
Goafer Posted February 1, 2015 Posted February 1, 2015 Shenmue III Nokia 3210 exclusive. So close... I'd still buy it.
Josh64 Posted February 1, 2015 Posted February 1, 2015 This is so depressing, I love sega, and even in recent years they've had some fantastic games. I was always hopeful that one day they'd pull it back (especially after Generations and All-Stars Racing were so good) and be able to go back to creating more of their fantastic games - a new Space Channel 5, NiGHTS, Jet Set Radio but alas, I guess that was not to be. I might play some Daytona tonight as tribute.
Ike Posted February 1, 2015 Posted February 1, 2015 Why did they have to buy Atlus just before the final push for this. I'm so sad. SEGA used to be such an awesome developer. I think Atlus will be fine, SEGA have pretty much left them to their own devices.
liger05 Posted February 2, 2015 Posted February 2, 2015 So Sega existing the hardware business wasn't the goldmine many seemed to predict. Funny that.
Dcubed Posted February 2, 2015 Posted February 2, 2015 I was researching this the other day and was surprised how close the Mega Drive actually was to the System 16 arcade board. According to Wikipedia, System 16 had a Motorola 68000 @ 10 MHz, whereas the Mega Drive was the same CPU, but clocked at 7.6 MHz. That was definitely its core appeal - the first time home console games genuinely felt like coin-ops. It was still a far cry from what was in the arcades at the time, but yeah. It was a real quantum leap for performance over its contemporaries! You also started seeing a lot more arcade ports in general, even in its early years with games like Strider and Ghouls N' Ghosts. Also helps that the FM sound chip that the MD used was very similar to the ones that a lot of arcade systems like the CPS used.
Wii Posted February 3, 2015 Author Posted February 3, 2015 SEGA boosted Genesis' power at the last minute to combat the release of the SNES Coming from a Mega Drive/Genesis: Collected Works interview with product designer Masami Ishikawa... G: How much did other home consoles of the era influence you? MI: There was a rumor that Nintendo was going to release the Super Famicom, so towards the end of the design process my manager asked me to consider doubling the graphic memory capacity to dramatically improve the console's performance. I had to redesign the way timing worked — the memory access cycle — and minimize the additional circuit size and number of IC pins needed. I managed to increase the graphic memory capacity, but it resulted in only a very incremental performance improvement, for example, increasing the number of display characters. This was when I hit a brick wall. I learned the painful lesson that designers need to imagine all the eventualities that may appear later in a process, and so must design in a way that makes it easy to change the design later. http://www.polygon.com/features/2015/2/3/7952705/sega-genesis-masami-ishikawa
gaggle64 Posted February 4, 2015 Posted February 4, 2015 I don't suppose there's any chance they'll finally pull their fingers out and put PSO2 in the west officially?
Wii Posted February 5, 2015 Author Posted February 5, 2015 Is Sega in Trouble? Sega Restructuring Roundtable Discussion Part 1 w/ BSC, ClementJ642, & More!
Recommended Posts