Blaster1

http://quote.bloomberg.com/fgcgi.cgi...tCbRUKU2VnYSB0

Mattalos

I hope my friends at Sammy USA will be okay ...

Trigger

ugh - sounds like the end. Wth is Sammy? That link says it's a company that makes Pachinko games? The president of Sammy is going to head the new merged company? Sega's net income is 90% lower than it's original forecast? Geez... how is this a thumbsup occasion? Sounds to me like the death of a dynasty. Hopefully I'm reading this horribly wrong.

gcribbs

I wonder if you might see someone like Sony move to buy some of the assets from the new company.

So much for Sega being a model for Nintendo to follow on moving towards a software only company.


Sega should have either released all games multiconsole or all on the PS2 to maximize profits.

Instead they tried to guess which game would sell on which console and 90% lower net earnings are the result.

Romier S

Sammy Corp as stated in the article is Pachinko game manufacturer as well as dabbling in another business such as game development. Sammy Studios for instance is a fully owned subsidiary of Sammy Corp. Sammy Studios is responsible for the recently release Guilty Gear X2 and Galerians Ash on the PS2.

AgtFox

Point 1 that you make is totally wrong. The major PS2 only release by Sega was Virtua Fighter 4, which is a great game...but it did not sell very well. As for putting all games multiconsole, most of this can be blamed on poor sales of their Sports line (which, surprise, are released multiconsole) and not really on their X-Box or GC only titles. Their GC titles have sold better than the X-Box ones, but the GC titles are more mass-market than the mostly niche titles that Sega has brought on X-Box. Who knows what type of sales they were expecting from GunValkyrie, JSRF, Crazy Taxi 3 and Sega GT2002. They were expecting strong sales from the Sports line though, which they did not get.

Point 2 can be redirected to point 1. The big reason for the lower net earnings is the bad sales of their sports games. EA brought new things to the table (NBA Live 2003 for example, MVP Baseball 2003 coming up) this year and refined their top games (Madden, NCAA). The gamers decided to go with the EA line of games instead of going with the Sega Sports lines of games. This is the reason that no more Sega Sports games will be released on the GameCube...the sales were far worse there than on the PS2 and X-Box for the sports titles.

EA and Sega are bitter rivals thanks to EA's non-support of the Dreamcast. Had EA supported the Dreamcast, I still wonder if Sega would have ever created the sports games they did. Sega wants to be the #1 3rd party company, but there is no way they could ever take over the juggernaut that EA has created.

Derrich

EA and Sega have hated each other since the days of the Genesis. EA refused to pay liscence fees and manufactured thier own cartridges, thus cutting out Sega's cashflow. That's why EA's Genesis games had that funky yellow tab on them, looking different from every other cart. They eventually came to an agreement, but never really made nice.

The board at EA are jumping for joy today.

D

Josh H

Using VF4 is a poor example.

A better example is that Sonic Adventure and other more mainstream type games would have made more money multi-console or PS2 only.

The virtua fighter series has never been huge in the mainstream as far as I know. I believe the only console versions where on the Sega CD and Saturn (which both sold poorly), and the crappy VF3 Team Battle thing on dreamcast. It was fairly popular in arcades though. But it certainly was never a big time, mainstream, casual gamer hit like Street Figher, Mortal Kombat, or even Tekken.

AgtFox

You took it the wrong way. I was using VF4 since it was the only PS2-only Sega game I can think of. I was not using it as a multi-console example, but as an example of PS2-only.

Your example of SA2 is slightly flawed as well, since SA2 sold pretty well on the GC (close to 500,000 sold I believe). Granted, it would have generated more sales if it was also out on other consoles, BUT the number of GameCube-based sales of the title would not be nearly as high as they are...would you agree? I also doubt if SA2 was PS2-only that it would have sold much more than the close to 500,000 sold on the GC. Same with Super Monkey Ball (which sold less obviously)...

As for EA and Sega...yes, they were not happy with each other on the Genesis days, but at least EA was bringing games out for Sega through the Saturn...can't say that for the Dreamcast. And let's face it, EA's sports games were far better on Genesis than they were on the SNES.

Going multiconsole can often be more pain than it is worth. You have to spend extra money to create something multiconsole and even then things may not sell well (Turok: Evolution, anyone?). The only place Sega could sell mass-market stuff was in their sports line. EA just one-upped them this year and it hurt Sega's bottom line. Sega's in a tough spot now...what do they do now other than putting more effort into their sports games on PS2 and X-Box next year and hope for the best?

Josh H

True.

IMO sega's problems are making too many niche games that sell poorly, i.e. Jet Set Radio series.

Also, IMO, a lot of their "mainstream" games are subpar. Sega GT isn't in the same league as Gran Turismo 3. The Sonic Adventure series (though well received and selling millions) suck compared to Rayman 2, Mario Sunshine, Mario 64, Banjo-Kazooie, etc. Definitely not top of the line 3D platformers IMO.

What sega needs to rejuvinate itself is some hits that will appeal to casual gamers. The next sonic game is supposed to go back to it's action roots. Hopefully that will still sell to the million+ that bought the Adventure games as well as bring back gamers like me that didn't like them and want a fast past action oriented sonic that recalls the old 2D games. This is a good first step, if they can get a few more mainstream hits, they'll be in good shape. But I've yet to see anything announced.