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Forums - Gaming - Is Sega finished with console retail? (GI.biz article)

Game_God on 31 January 2015
setsunatenshi said:
Game_God said:


With what money???

 that is the wrong question, the right question is... 'how much woud it cost?'

actually an even better question is 'how profitable would it be?'

a few different options are on the table:

A- SEGA decides to go the mobile route exclusively and maybe only publish other companie's ips

In this case I would argue they are sitting on assets for which they would have very little use for. They could very well sell the rights to their old ips that they haven't used for a long time nor have the capacity to use again (Shenmue f/e).  Depending on their plans on mobile I would say they should also think about selling off phantasy star, shining force, story of thor (going oldschool xD), Streets of Rage (c'mon!) etc.

On Sony's side, with consoles needing a boost on the JP market, guaranteeing the rights to such cult Japan made classics should make a big impact on the sales of vitas and ps4's in Japan mostly.

I haven't even mentioned Atlus which has almost single handedly been feeding the western market on JRPG's for the past several years.

 

B- SEGA decides to sell out completely:

 

That would be a lot more complicated, with Sony in the middle of a global restructure, after selling off the Vaio division, downsizing in the TV business, it seems like they have put their eggs in the Playstation ecosystem. I would imagine that with the focus on the playstation as a service (playstation now, playstation vue, playstation video and music, playstation plus...) they need to shift their investment to content and not as much on the hardware side of things. Would it be profitable acquiring such a rich backlog of content as the one SEGA sits on? Maybe, again, it depends on the cost. If the point was to simply re-release the same games in digital form to buy or rent, probably not. But having the teams in active development feeding new content could be very very valuable.

 

Will any of this happen... unfortunately I don't think so. One can hope though.


While I do agree with what you wrote, congrats on the elaboration :) I maintain, what I said, when you don't have money to buy i.e. Sony ( http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/12/us-sony-ceo-idUSKBN0KL27F20150112 ) you can't afford to look for anything to buy!



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n29CicBxZuw

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Blob on 31 January 2015
Ruler said:
Blob said:

sony really doesnt have any need to buy sega anyway. there isnt anything that sega offers them that they could really leverage. 

Well they would have a moscot and would tottally be cemented in gaming


Sony has plenty of mascots they just have the ips dormant at the moment. It also seems like they're moving away from mascot centered games/platformers as their last few titles didn't sell very well.

Sonys already cemented in gaming.

I should also note that sony certainly wouldn't buy sega for the handheld games they release. With the high likelihood that the vita is sonys last handheld it wouldn't be worth it.



teigaga on 31 January 2015

Sega is all nostalgia at this point, they produce nothing of use.



Multishanks on 31 January 2015
Blob said:
Multishanks said:

........You REALLY think that is a good idea? I think Sony has enough on its plate as it is. 

sony really doesnt have any need to buy sega anyway. there isnt anything that sega offers them that they could really leverage. 

I agree. They both have nothing to gain from each other except for maybe the Yakuza franchise, but that would only work if Rockstar did it for SCE. It wouldn't be worth it. 



setsunatenshi on 31 January 2015
Game_God said:
setsunatenshi said:

 that is the wrong question, the right question is... 'how much woud it cost?'

actually an even better question is 'how profitable would it be?'

a few different options are on the table:

A- SEGA decides to go the mobile route exclusively and maybe only publish other companie's ips

In this case I would argue they are sitting on assets for which they would have very little use for. They could very well sell the rights to their old ips that they haven't used for a long time nor have the capacity to use again (Shenmue f/e).  Depending on their plans on mobile I would say they should also think about selling off phantasy star, shining force, story of thor (going oldschool xD), Streets of Rage (c'mon!) etc.

On Sony's side, with consoles needing a boost on the JP market, guaranteeing the rights to such cult Japan made classics should make a big impact on the sales of vitas and ps4's in Japan mostly.

I haven't even mentioned Atlus which has almost single handedly been feeding the western market on JRPG's for the past several years.

 

B- SEGA decides to sell out completely:

 

That would be a lot more complicated, with Sony in the middle of a global restructure, after selling off the Vaio division, downsizing in the TV business, it seems like they have put their eggs in the Playstation ecosystem. I would imagine that with the focus on the playstation as a service (playstation now, playstation vue, playstation video and music, playstation plus...) they need to shift their investment to content and not as much on the hardware side of things. Would it be profitable acquiring such a rich backlog of content as the one SEGA sits on? Maybe, again, it depends on the cost. If the point was to simply re-release the same games in digital form to buy or rent, probably not. But having the teams in active development feeding new content could be very very valuable.

 

Will any of this happen... unfortunately I don't think so. One can hope though.


While I do agree with what you wrote, congrats on the elaboration :) I maintain, what I said, when you don't have money to buy i.e. Sony ( http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/12/us-sony-ceo-idUSKBN0KL27F20150112 ) you can't afford to look for anything to buy!


Well, there's one gigantic pre condition for any of these scenarios to be remotely true... which is, do the SEGA shareholders want to sell off any of their assets? Unfortunately I don't think we have any data pointing to that happening so it's all one big fantasy for now :P

I am well aware of Sony's difficulties, their restructuring started a few years ago and seems like they are really becoming much more focused now on what's making money. From the latest keynotes and interviews I saw Kaz Hirai, it appears as though Playstation is the new face of Sony. It might be good for them to double and triple down on making the Playstation brand even more widespread as well as focus on content creation + delivery.

The old Sony approach of making 1000 different types of hardware is ending which will definitely cut a ton of costs (also a lot of jobs unfortunately) but might actually be the winning strategy for them. Much like Apple had gone through bad times before hitting the jackpot with their 'I' line, it would seem to me Sony has to hit it out of the park in what they can do best. If I was the one making the decisions, I would consider very seriously taking steps to get some SEGA goodies onboard ;)



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Wright on 31 January 2015

It would be a damn shame. SEGA still makes quality products from time to time; but their rocky situation and some bad bussiness decisions over the times have put them in a dangerous place; which screws us, specifically.



Nem on 02 February 2015

Of course their console software business is gonna fail after they laid off all the talent, closed all the studios and dont give their remaining teams enough time to finish the products (sonic 06 and sonic boom).
Why did they buy Atlus and that other THQ studio? If they are focusing on digital why havent they released PSO2 in the west?

Get out Sammy. The problem and the ones ruining your business are the people making all these nonsensical decisions. Have you ever seen any company grow from cancelling projects, closing studios and laying off talent? You got what you looked for.
A company without vision might aswell already be dead. I am sad that they will drag Atlus down with them.
Sammy, just sell Sega to someone else... please. You obviously failed at it.



oniyide on 02 February 2015
Kirin_gaming said:
Really sad news.Sounds like they're moving into way smaller projects,so we could consider 'em preatty much dead at this point...

And no, neither Sony nor microsoft should buy them.Sony kind of is the one that killed them when they entered the console market, and MS...Well let's just say I don't want another Rare.Nintendo and Sega should partner, just for old times sake.


No Sony didnt do anything. Sega killed themselves by doing the SAME stupid things they seem to be doing now



cheshirescat on 02 February 2015

I just hope that Activision does the right thing and steps up to buy the rights to Sonic and his friends then proceeds to sit on the franchise forever like they've done with Crash so the little bastard can finally die.