flatearthpandas
Member
And kill off one of their major franchises?Time for Sony to get/save Atlus.
No thanks.
And kill off one of their major franchises?Time for Sony to get/save Atlus.
Arcade staff?
So Virtua Fighter is dead?
Sega will be fine. This change has no effect on you guys anyway. What Sega games have you bought recently?
Sega intends 300 layoffs total, with a notable portion of that presumably coming from the arcade business
They're going where the money is. As long as they keep bringing titles to PC--where they are profitable--I'm all good.
Sad to see their arcade arm, the core of what make Sega (or made until Yu Suzuki left) Sega continue hemorrhaging, until nothing's left. Sega was basically arcade gaming to me.
and here I was maybe hoping for another
I can only hope the arcades see a revival with VR.
A portfolio of only F2P pc, FM/TW series, mobile and no more games like Yakuza, Valkyria Chronicles, Alien Isolation etc isn't exactly what makes me "all good".
And kill off one of their major franchises?
No thanks.
Definitely not the direction I wanted the company to go in. For all the talk about Sonic and Persona and Yakuza, I'm most concerned about the loss of an arcade presence. Sega wasn't just one of the legends in the market, but the arcades were a constant source of innovation and new IP for the company, and as Sega's done little to innovate or create new IP for a decade now, this worries me.
Best wishes to anyone affected by the layoffs.
Persona's essentially gone if it were Nintendo. Etrian Odyssey is essentially gone if it were Sony. Clearly, the answer is Microsoft.
Hope those affected will land on their feat, terrible news.
Honestly, SEGA seem to be transitioning to a PC/Steam/Mobile market only; the only exception being their Sonic property that will continue to be available at retail. As such, a downsize was surely in the making and I guess the news is proof of that. Sad times.
What? Bayonetta, Vanquish, Mad World, Infinite Space, Anarchy Reigns, Resonance of Fate, Binary Domain, Condemned, The Conduit, Border Break, Sands of Destruction, Full Auto, Dinosaur King, Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA, Yakuza and Valkyria Chronicles count as "doing little" to develop new IP in the last decade? Alien Isolation, Total War: Arena and Sonic Unleashed-Colors-Generations don't count as innovations for existing IP over the last decade? I'm not sure you've been paying attention to this company.
Is this why Fire Emblem x Shin Megami Tensei is the way it is currently?
Nothing stopping games like Valkyria Chronicles picking up an audience in their new markets. Plus Dawn of War 3 is likely in development.
Is this why Fire Emblem x Shin Megami Tensei is the way it is currently?
Phantasy Star Portable (yes, a new, sealed copy that I lucked into at a GameStop earlier this month) and Alien Isolation for PC at launch in October. Also, Bayonetta 2 technically is a Sega property, and I got that for Christmas.
I'm assuming this means we will be seeing many more PC and digital ports of SEGA's biggest new games that didn't make expectations.
Vanquish, Bayonetta, etc would make great ports on next gen as small priced downloads (say, $20 each).
With Atlus I think people get a bit lost in the forest.
Atlus is a subsidiary of Sega, yes, but so are most of their studios.
However, the way Sega operates as a business is that they try to move toward whatever they feel the most profitable direction is.
Sega Sammy's business directions apply to all their subsidiaries, but the way they're applied and implemented is going to be different depending on the products being made and the audience they're selling to.
Atlus has definitely ramped up their digital business to fit in. You see that through them adding progressively more DLC to their games and their Western localization branch focusing more on digital titles over retail games.
The confusion in here is huge...
What this mainly affects:
- Arcade Centers in Japan. This includes games like: Project Diva Arcade, Maimai, Code of Joker, Puyo Puyo Quest, and a couple other things.
- Development of future arcade titles. I'm sure we won't be seeing another Outrun or anything similar for a long, long time now.
- Reduction of labor for console releases
- Ramped production for mobile and PC titles
What this doesn't affect:
- Atlus or any of Sega's subsidiaries.
- Any part of SegaSammy holdings outside of the primary video game market (gambling machines, sponsored teams, etc.)
- PC or net service games like PSO2.
It's all in the document that the OP listed. Pretty clear that they're just refocusing to try and make some money in this market.
See you are un-effected by these changes.
If you do not care to sell your HW you don't take chances, experiment and innovate, you just milk your popular entries. That's what SNK does, that's what Sega does, and that's the safest way to reach complete irrelevance.
If Sega is not interested in their console franchises anymore, why don't they just sell them instead of letting them rot? I'm worried about retail Sonic now .
What experimentation and innovation was SNK doing with the Neo Geo? Lots of big words for a company that kept cookie pressing out the same tired series over and over.
Fuck, I didn't even think of that.I wonder how this will affect Atlus.
FUCK.What does this mean for Relic and Creative Assembly?
Update:
Quick Breakdown:
-Sega is continuing their refocus to digital games.
-As part of this, they're downsizing their Western publishing business (but not their Western development studios), and staff in their arcade game department in Japan. They're also transferring the staff they can to mobile/PC Online in particular.
-So far 120 layoffs have been announced at Sega West, primarily in Sega of America and some in Sega of Europe (this is the publishing business, not the studios).
-Sega intends 300 layoffs total, with a notable portion of that presumably coming from the arcade business in Japan.
-They're plausibly also changing what some of their staff work on - and we've certainly seen that over time from Sega - but that's not directly related to the layoffs we're talking about today. The layoffs are focused on business components that can't easily be transferred to digital, which are primarily retail publishing resources and physical devices like arcade machines.
Press release (read this link): http://fs.magicalir.net/tdnet/2015/6460/20150130014909.pdf
Also:
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A bit more over at the Source (MCVUK)
It is sad to watch the shambling corpse of what was my favorite childhood gaming company.
-What will that mean for studio's like AM2?
While I am more than ready for a PC infusion, I know it does stink to be in the crosshairs of a mass layoff so this is pretty much terrible news with a tiny silver lining.
The questions I have are:
-What will that mean for studio's like AM2?
-The arcade scene is BNB for the Virtua Fighter series, so I am wondering if they will be included in the layoffs or will they moved on to a different platform for a continuation of the VF series?
-Same question for the rest of their arcade fighting games?
Honestly we've even seen this among larger publishers like Activision Blizzard, EA, and larger independent studios like Valve.
Ubisoft is still very much a packaged goods publisher though which is a big part of why they've had so many issues getting to where Activision and EA are despite their major growth (and tremendous staff growth).
It seems like a prudent direction for Sega, I don't really understand the doom and gloom here.
Activision Blizzard? or just the Activision part? I'm not really sure how the company is set up or what the digital offerings of Activision are.
But I agree, EA has made some good moves for long term profits in the digital/mobile realm, which is really hard to do.
Sometimes I short hand Activision Blizzard as Activision, but Blizzard is overwhelmingly digital, CoD has very strong digital attach rates (and just sheer volume), and then Destiny is a very digital heavy product as well.
Skylanders is notably physical heavy, but it kind of has to be.
Beyond that they're also investing in f2p games on the Activision side like CoD: Online for China.
Bringing back Sierra was also a new digital strategy on the Activision side, while they've continued to ramp down on their licensed retail game business.
It seems like a prudent direction for Sega, I don't really understand the doom and gloom here.