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Sega sells Visual Concepts

The Japanese publisher confirms it has sold off Visual Concepts and its Kush subsidiary for a bargain price of $24 million.
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I really don't like to insult, but SEGA is too stupid for words. $24 million - ROFL.
 
To compare, MS sold their sports studio to Take-Two for $18.5 million. Take-Two made two very good deals.
 
Izzy said:
I really don't like to insult, but SEGA is too stupid for words. $24 million - ROFL.
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They have no leverage right now. EA has NFL license and the ESPN brand VC revived :lol
 
Will Take Two be able to work around EA having the NFL license? Baseball isn't that important compared to football (sales wise). They had better work like crazy to make sure the NBA rights don't end up like the NFL rights did.
 
Fuzzy said:
To compare, MS sold their sports studio to Take-Two for $18.5 million. Take-Two made two very good deals.
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Wow. Take Two is playing Billy Beane ball in the sports arena.
 
Culex said:
In 5 years, will Sega still be around? :-(
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They will be around in the same way that Atari is still around - a zombie franchise. More importantly is the end of the cold war between EA and Take 2. This is becoming a shooting war real quick - huge nuclear missile style strikes all across the industry.
 
If they were serious about a NiGHTS game, they should let Miyamoto have a crack at it, if he would be interested
 
Agent Icebeezy said:
If they were serious about a NiGHTS game, they should let Miyamoto have a crack at it, if he would be interested
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No, if they were serious, they'd let Naka and the original Sonic Team do it.
 
Take Two is driven by the market now. They have to compete with EA or they'll look like a second tier publisher despite having the best selling game on PS2.
 
Phoenix said:
They will be around in the same way that Atari is still around - a zombie franchise. More importantly is the end of the cold war between EA and Take 2. This is becoming a shooting war real quick - huge nuclear missile style strikes all across the industry.
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Someone will have to buy Sega and whore their name around first. And really right now I don't think Sega's name has much clout to whore around.
 
Phoenix said:
They will be around in the same way that Atari is still around - a zombie franchise. More importantly is the end of the cold war between EA and Take 2. This is becoming a shooting war real quick - huge nuclear missile style strikes all across the industry.
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I think EA are only ones with the nuclear missiles imo :lol
 
I guess this isn't surprising. After reading archived articles at Goodcow's site, this is just another sad chapter in the overlong Wagnerian opera that is Sega's history. :p
 
Nothing is preventing Visual Concepts from creating a College football game right? Or does EA have exclusive rights on the NCAA?

Take Two has made a lot of great quality acquisitions lately.
 
Nothing is preventing Visual Concepts from creating a College football game right? Or does EA have exclusive rights on the NCAA?
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College isn't exclusive and I'd be very surprised if it ever was. They'd have a hard time trying to explain how that's in the best interest of student athletics, and the NCAA heads would get roasted even more for their blatant money grubbing tactics, something they've been trying to downplay as of late.

Unfortunately for T2/VC, college football games don't move nearly the units. If they have the defacto best game in town though it could give them a real boost. I'd have a hard time seeing VC get to that level though, their college games have been pretty blah.
 
Sega is beyond dumb now. There are no words for their stupidity. Whenever a company makes a bad decision from now on we should all call it a "sega".
 
shpankey said:
Sega is beyond dumb now. There are no words for their stupidity. Whenever a company makes a bad decision from now on we should all call it a "sega".
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My friends and I already do that. The wrote the books on bad decisions.
 
Pimpwerx said:
Who owns AM2? They're really the prize of all the Sega teams. Sony or MS should try to scoop them up. PEACE.
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I'd prefer Namco had them since they still have a presence in US arcades.
 
Is EA Sports bad for gamers?

http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3137894

Second, does this move curb creativity? Look at the history. When Sony's recklessly terrible GameDay was Madden's main unthreatening competition, EA did very little in the way of advancing its game, adding only limited annual updates. But once the ESPN franchise came over from Dreamcast, posing a serious threat to Madden's king-of-the-gridiron status, EA made highly innovative changes to Madden, particularly in the last two seasons. Without impetus to outdo the competition, it stands to reason that the series could very possibly stagnate.
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Which, is ultimately the point of why we're all shitting our pants.

Also, Bryan (from EGM) addresses this issue down below...

And if you want proof that competition breeds higher-quality products, just look at the history of EA's pro-football franchise. During the end of the 16-bit era, Madden games were marginally different from years past. Then, PS1 launches in 1995 with the super-surprising NFL GameDay , forcing the Madden gang to kick it into high gear.
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Rhindle said:
$24 Mil is actually a pretty decent price for a good developer with no major franchises.
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Exactly. I'm surprised they got that much for them. No offense to VC, they are an awesome dev house, but without any dev-owned IP, a publisher is basically buying access to the talent and experience.
 
Cloudy said:
They have no leverage right now. EA has NFL license and the ESPN brand VC revived :lol
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They had no leverage anyways. The series has never brought in a profit. As a point of reference,Criterion sold for 48 million to EA and represent more value than VC for their Renderware package alone. VC uses Renderware for their sports games by the way.
 
Datawhore said:
Exactly. I'm surprised they got that much for them. No offense to VC, they are an awesome dev house, but without any dev-owned IP, a publisher is basically buying access to the talent and experience.
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What about Ooga Booga?! Dammit! I want Ooga Booga 2! Nothing beats boar polo! Can I yell any lounder? NO!


And now the industry moves ever further towards a crash... DOOMED!!!
 
Cloudy said:
They have no leverage right now. EA has NFL license and the ESPN brand VC revived :lol
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What? EA would have bought VC for alot more than that. Of course more than half of the people there would be looking for work...but they would have bought VC.

That shit 1up is spouting refers to before Tiburon took over Madden duties. The other developers did stagnate the game. Come on, before Take Two dropped the price to 20 bucks, Madden had zero competition the last few years yet, every edition was better than the last. Also with a real NFL partnership now, Madden has more pressure on it than ever. With 2 non-licensed games coming out, the pressure is really on. It would be really egg on the face if 2 non-licensed games are better than the 1 NFL game, it would be really leave EA looking like fools.
 
Nintendo only paid 1 million for Retro. 24million isn't bad, it's not like Take Two was buying SEGA. They bought one studio. 24 mil for VC isn't that bad, might be a bargain, but obviously SEGA could care less.
 
Gaia Theory said:
Nintendo only paid 1 million for Retro. 24million isn't bad, it's not like Take Two was buying SEGA. They bought one studio. 24 mil for VC isn't that bad, might be a bargain, but obviously SEGA could care less.
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Two studios actually, Kush Games got thrown into the mix as well.
 
Kush Games did the hockey titles...which did approximately:


PS2 NHL 2005 63,125
XBX NHL 2005 26,293
GCN NHL 2005 12,471
vs
PS2 ESPN NHL 2K5 160,410
XBX ESPN NHL 2K5 *120,454 (138,454 max)

(posted by BlackClouds in this thread: http://www.ga-forum.com/showthread.php?t=27759&highlight=ESPN)

Despite being on THREE platforms, EA's NHL couldn't outsell SEGA's SINGLE-WORST selling platform!!

Kush games is an EXCELLENT PART of this aquisition. They also did the NCAA Basketball game (the GOOD one, couple years ago AFAIR) and are now doing baseball.

Thus far...all EA has is football. It's a big peice of the sports pie, but it was VERY costly to EA...I don't think it was worth it.
 
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