http://www.gamasutra.com/view/pressreleases/173179/SEGA_REVIEWS_THEIR_EUROPEAN_STRUCTURE.php Well, we knew it was coming, with all the shovelware crap of the last decade it was bound to happen Heh, "last decade", it's been 10 years already? and to think in the 10 years before that we got the Genesis, SegaCD, 32X, Game Gear, Nomad, Saturn..........the Dreamcast!:sorrow: There really is nothing going on these days, years ago I would say "dude you are exaggerating" but there really was a lot more going on in those days. Is kinda like cars you know? all the crazy innovative stuff happened like 60 years ago, now all cars have the same generic crap and electronic nannies so douchebags wont kill themselves while texting. Now it's officially over......
Reduced? Anyway i don't see what the big deal is here, it sounds like they're going with a cheaper distribution method in Europe to funnel money into making better games, which is something they should have done ages ago frankly.
If Sega gave a f&$k, they would still be making hardware and not just software. Oh what's this world coming to?
Game over? Yeah. *sigh* Why can't Sega just pour all of its remaining financial resources into giving us few remaining die-hard fans one last reason to celebrate in the form of Shenmue III and then finally bid the world farewell? Do we really need more creatively bankrupt Sonic titles with irritating voices, unwanted side characters or grind rails? Let's face it - the real Sega died (spiritually, at least) a long time ago, and now all that's left is the rotting corpse that's yet to be officially buried!
Dammit, you beat me to it. But yeah, Sega has been a shambling corpse for awhile now. If they go under, it'll be 10 years too late.
Of course it was 10 years ago, my point is there's no comeback from this, sammy really is cutting down the company to the bone
Had the company gone under with the Dreamcast, I would have respected Sega far more than I do now. Instead, the creativity has long-since dried up and all the best game designers have left to produce software that couldn't possibly rival their vintage best, even for those few whose output quality remains the same. Then again, maybe this is a reflection of the industry as a whole rather than just an issue exclusive to within Sega's own development teams? Capcom's greatest producers and directors seem to be experiencing the same problem, and you know something's wrong when the likes of Yuji Naka and Yu Suzuki are now turning their attention to a business model that is the polar opposite of pushing the latest hardware. Actually, this drive seemed to vanish around the same time as the company's decision to abandon the console market, so maybe it would be best if the powers that be put all their efforts into one last push... get the old huge names back on board, create a real powerhouse machine again and launch the resulting platform with a huge, single wave of concentrated Sega - a collection of truly incredible software that represents everything this once mighty giant ever stood for. If that failed and Sega disappears forever, the fans will know the whole sorry mess went out on top, just as should have originally happened back in 2001.
In this last decade, two companies have become next to nothing or merely dissapeared, which because of their way of doing things I will remember for a long, long time: and , thanks to the engineers who created such much inspiration for me in so many creative things.
A good friend of mine worked for Sega UK two or three years ago - I think they only had about 30 staff in total. As mentioned elsewhere - Sega died when the Dreamcast died and then got bought up by Sammy. To be fair, the only Sega ever worth mentioning was Sega Japan - that's where the innovation used to be. Not in Sega UK, France, etc... If they went belly up tomorrow I doubt anyone would really notice.
so what's the big deal. Sega Europe has ways been like this. even in the days of Saturn the UK office was downsized a lot. this news means nothing to us. It's no big deal at all. I wish some members would stop all this doom and gloom shit. I worked in the UK game industry back in the mid to age 90s and I'll tell you now that it wasn't much different back then. Even Nintendo didn't have its own publishing division. In fact I don't think they do now in the UK. Anyway, and the bottom line is that this news will make no difference to our gaming life. Sega Europe make jack shit anyway. Yakumo
Sega had its chances to be back strongly.. in the handheld market at the GBA times, and in the nds/psp stall. They could have fittted in the obsoleted handheld market and easily got a market share. they didn't, they lost their chance, goodbye.
I'd say they threw everything they had into the Dreamcast - but Sony already had the user base with the PS1 so the PS2 was always going to come out on top. Likewise, the only other contender was Microsoft with the XBOX and they had enough cash to throw at a console to make them impossible to beat, hence the success of the 360. It was over 10 years ago - but Sega did go out in style with the Dreamcast - it was a nippy little machine with some brilliant games, in the last few years when games didn't require Hollywood sized budgets before they even got a look-in.
I keep saying it. Sega took too long to ready Dreamcast outside Japan. Trying to avoid repeating their Saturn incident, tossed away free time for Sony to build hype. That opportunity was used to publicly unveil PS2 between the JP and US launch dates of DC.
I don't think that could've saved the DC, most of the general public would've waited for the PS2 anyway since it was the next console from the then-current market leader, and the hype was already massive (remember all that crap about the Emotion Engine being able to render Pixar-quality 3D in real time?). Even with a year-long head start most people were buying a PS2 to play Fantavision instead of buying a DC for Soul Calibur, Crazy Taxi, Power Stone, Shenmue etc. The dumb part is that the hype is what killed DC - as well as the fact that the PS2 could be used as a really crappy DVD player, which was a big selling point back then. The DC unquestionably had the better games, but the general public ignored that in favor of the shit PS2 launch library thanks to the hype.
SEGA's plan was to just make software for all consoles, even though not all of it was worth playing it still was their plan. This was SEGA's end right from the beginning and fans alike will continue to say the same thing. It's hard for many fans to just face the facts, SEGA is gone
It makes sense that Sega Europe is consolidating. It was one thing to have 6 different in-house offices throughout the continent when they were distributing and localizing hardware (as Master System and Megadrive were fairly popular there iirc), but all they do now is develop software that can be distributed in much easier ways. I've had a Genesis for as long as I can remember, and it's definitely unfortunate to see how small amounts of incompetency can destroy great amounts of creative genius, but in all of that Sega was at least smart enough to rebuild itself with a new purpose that's still somewhat relevant to our tastes. On top of that, it could always be worse. They could've started developing for cellphones exclusively (dun dun dunnnn)
I am surprised sega still exists to be honest with their current track record for hits. I am just surprised they never sold themselves to nintendo or microsoft as it would be better for them to focus on one hardware instead of multiple. The dc imo was probably the last true gaming machine.
