It's a shame that the video game market has, like many other industries, become difficult to survive in. Sega was, at one time, the biggest gaming company in the world, and for them to now be in the situation where they're going to become not just a software developer, but they're downscaling their operation to focus on digital download titles, is quite a sad thing.
Their plan seems to be to continue to produce retail titles for strong IP's like Sonic, Football Manager, Total War and Aliens, but they're going to cancel a lot of other projects in the pipe line and concentrate mainly on delivering content via XBLA and PSN etc.
I think Sega's America devision is going to be hit hardest by this as they're looking to scale that department down purely to localisation and some public relations work, with most marketing and development coming from Europe and Japan, which means a lot of people look set to loose their jobs sadly.
THQ, Obsidian, and now SEGA? Not going particularly well for the gaming industry anywhere. Bit strange to scale down the SEGA North America department, given that it (or so I thought) was considered to be the one with the highest potential income for a new title. Or am I wrong about that?
THQ, Obsidian, and now SEGA? Not going particularly well for the gaming industry anywhere. Bit strange to scale down the SEGA North America department, given that it (or so I thought) was considered to be the one with the highest potential income for a new title. Or am I wrong about that?
Japan and Europe have always been Sega's strongest markets, America is a larger potential market but Sega have historically never been able to crack it quite in the same way it has with the other territories.
As a result over the evolution of the company, the American devision is the one with the least political power internally and the one least likely to survive any major cutbacks.
IGN’s Steven Hopper reports the entire QA department at SOA has been laid off. In a nutshell, it means the North America game testers are gone. Sega Europe will now handle QA for all Sega fare, according to the report.
Also, not sure what the cancelled games are yet, but, if it isn't a Sonic title, Football Manager title, Total War or Aliens title, then it's gone.
Not necessarily all. Binary Domain's PC release is next week, and I'm rather sure cancelling that now would only be negative to SEGA since it's already gold(not unheard of, but still fairly unlikely). Other than Binary Domain, there's Virtua Fighter, Yakuza 5, Anarchy Reigns, Phantasy Star Online 2, and London 2012 from a quick glance. It'd be nice to know which ones are in jeopardy. Could be they're just to be put on hold until they can pick up development again.
Last edited by Serio; March 31st, 2012 at 06:39 AM.
Sega cancelling games and cutting jobs, GAME going into administration with Gamestation possibly following, lockout software on next gen so that preowned games can't be played...
Not necessarily all. Binary Domain's PC release is next week, and I'm rather sure cancelling that now would only be negative to SEGA since it's already gold(not unheard of, but still fairly unlikely). Other than Binary Domain, there's Virtua Fighter, Yakuza 5, Anarchy Reigns, Phantasy Star Online 2, and London 2012 from a quick glance. It'd be nice to know which ones are in jeopardy. Could be they're just to be put on hold until they can pick up development again.
Games in development, not games that have gone gold.
It remains to be seen exactly what the casualties are. Things are still developing it seems.
I think Gaming (whether it be as we currently have it, or something different) is something of the future; and something that is likely to remain a presence for many years to come.
Sure, we've hit some dark times, and I doubt we're out of the woods yet, but I fully expect the gaming industry to survive whatever is thrown at it.
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