They did not announce that any specific game was cancelled, only that some titles were. Don't jump to conclusions. And I don't think Sega — or any company, for that matter — is in a position to make an April Fool's joke about its earnings.
Err, april fools prank? Why? It's certainly a credible source, coming straight from Sega-Sammy's server in Japan. And I might be wrong, but do they really acknowledge april fools over in Japan? :P
Is the potential closure of SEGA of America worthy of its own thread? http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=468515 Those twitter accounts are pretty damning... https://twitter.com/#!/frostman007 https://twitter.com/#!/aeonnz
How shocking. They've only been hemorrhaging yen every single quarter since, uh... wow, since time forgot? If I remember their financial reports right, specifically the home entertainment arm (Sega) has consistently been a major monetary loser for eons and the pachinko arm (guess who) has been profitable, probably enough to prop them up, but nowhere near enough to offset the losses. You have to wonder how much a company can to continue to "shrink" in this manner until they implode.
It seems like RubyEclipse is okay. Now I just need to make sure Ken Balough is still okay. Unfortunately I don't think he has a twitter.
SEGA are not going to stop making their best selling games like Yakuza, nor are they going to cancel digital games like JSR when they stated the main purpose of this is to INCREASE digital games. Most people probably never read their statement and are unaware of what games SEGA even makes (go look on Gamefaqs).
Very worried about PSO2 now. I don't think SoA ever mentioned the game outside of Japan besides a few forum quirks. I know there are some localization files in the alpha clients, but you never know if they will decide to pull the plug. Hopefully since the entire game is digital only it might be saved, but still...
Didn't Yakuza only come out here because Sega of Japan forced them? Sega of America and Europe seem to hate anything Japanese. Not localizing any good games and refusing to advertise anything at-fucking-all tends to decrease sales.
NOTHING will happen to PSO2. If anything it'll be delayed. Probably not, but that's literally the only other option besides release. The game's damn near finished, and it's in the hands of some of the general public. Nothing is going to happen to it.
With them losing that much money, I don't think they're going to be stupid enough to take that risk. At least, I hope they're not that stupid. This doesn't sound good. I also hope they can pull out of this and regain their footing. Hell, I didn't even know they were making another PSO game; I'll gladly sign up for that shit.
I don't know if you're just referring to the Japanese release or the potential releases outside of Japan. I know very very very well Japan will get this game, but I haven't seen much besides some data mining and some domain registration that hints that the game will make it over here. More specifically, I'm worried about PSO2 reaching outside territories. I don't know how much localization or QA has been made for the US version of this game so far if it is indeed in production (since it shifted to 'beta' during development, localization would probably start now). All I've ever seen were a few mentions of the game from the community guys at Sega, but no formal press release or anything has been made about this game. I know it seems kinda silly to think that there is a slim chance this game might not make it over here, but while unlikely it's still possible. And with the events that have been occurring at Sega of America so far it's not helping the matter any. But oh god do I hope you're right. I want to play this game nowwwwwwwww.
Look at any of Yakuza games released overseas: they all took a year to bring over. Plus, Ryu ga Gotoku 5 has no set release date, price, CERO rating, or even name (that's what the ??? means) — only a series website linked from the catalogue page which also says this will be a PS3 action adventure game. tl;dr by the time Gotoku 5 gets released in Japan, the situation might change and we might see Yakuza 5. (I haven't played any of the Yakuza games myself, but I'd like to try them out.) As for people who think making more Sonic titles is going to kill Sega, keep in mind that Sonic games have been selling regardless of the critical reception. Sadly I don't have any sales figures on me right now to corroborate that. I will tell you this: Sega's Steam page lists nothing but Total War games (and Binary Domain) under the Top Sellers tab.
I seem to recall someone having a theory about Sega saving a rerelease of Sonic Adventure 2 for when shit hits the fan, so they can make a quick dollar off of it. Seems like as good a time as ever.
Anybody who's claiming that Sega is going to cancel Phantasy Star Online 2 isn't aware of the game's development. It has been in development since 2009 and the game actually is hitting the beta phase in less than a month. Coming from somebody who's played the Alpha, I'd happily say that this this is possibly the best Phantasy Star game that has came out, it feels like a true sequel to PSO and it is importer friendly. However, the chances of a global version coming out is possibly lowered by this, but you need to remember that European languages were discovered by datamining. It's easily possible that the game could have global servers like the developer's wanted to and be translated into EFIGS (English, French, Italian, German, Spanish) for a North American and European market. The game is entirely digital so I doubt it would be effected by this in the slightest, it's far too late to pull the axe on PSO2 when they're releasing daily videos on the build up to the Character Editor and the beta.
The cancelled games are most likely all unannounced and Japanese exclusive, like a lot of amusement centre games, rhyme and music games, licensed games, and so on like that. Anything note-worthy was probably in the early stages of development and has never been made public. Nothing about to come out is going to be cancelled after years of development, like Phantasy Star, Yakuza, Sonic, etceterta, maybe just cheap spinoffs.
I hope Ken got through okay. IGN was reporting that people in marketing, social media and design got knocked, that's his department