SEGA have confirmed rumours that were circulating a few weeks back – as a result of their recent restructure they will be “shifting business to focus on developing new and existing digital content as well as driving key IP for packaged goods.”
This has meant that their offices in France, Germany, Spain, Australia and Benelux have closed. Koch Media have been appointed to assist SEGA with distribution across Germany, Switzerland, Austria, France and Spain of packaged goods, Level03 Distribution and 5 Star Games will assist with distribution across Benelux and Australia respectively which will be implemented from the July.
“SEGA is entering a new and exciting phase that will position the company as a content led organisation maximising sales with strong and balanced IP such as Sonic the Hedgehog, Total War, Football Manager and the Aliens franchise”, commented Jurgen Post, COO of SEGA Europe.
Apparently 65% of SEGA’s business is generated by those four key IPs.
“It’s painful, it’s not an easy process, and we have had to make a lot of changes,” he said to MCV. “But we had to do it. We have been looking at past results, and as we all know the market is tough at the moment, it’s polarising so the bigger games are getting bigger and it’s harder to break new IP.”
“The business is shifting so fast we had to make the decision. It was inevitable: we couldn’t continue like we were before.”
It looks like there’s a focus on digital goods, as the rumours hinted at, and other than the four IPs above, SEGA won’t be doing much more with retail games after the latest Olympics game is released.
Klart
Sad. I used to be a SEGA fanboy.
Forrest_01
What about Yakuza???
Surely that must make them money in Japan??
jayjay119
I was thinking that. Though, they have been cranking them out as quickly as the can lately perhaps they feel the series has run it’s course
Forrest_01
Yakuza 5 was definitely planned (& started i think), but whether they have completely halted work on that, or plan to ditch the seres after that one has been released is anyones guess i suppose! :(
Burgess_101
No SEGA! :(
Crocadillian
If they’re depending so much on 4 franchises, they are putting themselves in an incredibly precarious situation. I can’t see this going well from a creative or business perspective :l
Tuffcub
As long as one franchise sells millions they arent going to care. Ref: COD.
Forrest_01
Trouble is that Sega don’t really have anything that successful, do they?
yogh_wayne
In other words: Abandon all hope for a proper new Valkyria Chronicles game on PS3 or Vita :(
Kennykazey
Darth Vader said it best: “NOOO!”
jayjay119
I miss the days when Sega used to make hardware, the Saturn and Dreamcast were solid, forward thinking yet unfortunate consoles. I would like to see them come back next gen and bring a decent console that could run against the current big three but I know that is as likely to happen as getting Shenmue 3. Nope, Sega’s days of console making are long gone. Shame really, I think the console market wouldn’t be the same today had it not been for them.
philzy85
I build Sega arcade machine games and their doing extremely well in business at the moment.
OnlineAssassin77
To be this good takes AGES!
a inferior race
Make me a proper Sonic sequel please, without a homing attack..
Victorius
They’re dying.