I imagine by now most of you have read 1 or 2 or 5 articles similar to this one basically detailing how Sega's finances are looking pretty dismal. While this itself might be disheartening for fans like us, it's nothing compared to the sheer embarrassment and disgust I have towards how they are beefing up those ledgers again. Sega's always been pretty shameless about reselling old titles on new platforms, but it has really started to get out of hand—this year especially. Sonic Adventure 2: Literally a renderer upscale and a texture remaster. They even went through the trouble of ripping content out of SA2B just so they could sell it back to us at a spiked DLC price. No online play, no "tiny chao garden for your PS Vita," no bonus content. NiGHTS: Pretty much the same deal as SA2. Straight port with some graphics enhancements. I can't hate on this one as much though, solely because of how few people nowadays even remember the Sega Saturn let alone still have one. Jet Set Radio, Crazy Taxi, etc etc: same fucking thing. Ported as swiftly and inexpensively as possible to as many possible systems as they can cover. "Sega Heritage Collection." "Sega Vintage Collection." "Anniversary Edition." No matter how many names they give it it's still just an old dog doing old tricks. And apparently Sega is so cheap, they didn't even renew the licensing deals to have real-world companies and logos in Crazy Taxi, so they just genericized them all. Soundtracks on iTunes: I thought it was cool when they started doing this with Sonic Colors, but then they just dumped them all onto iTunes. Sonic Adventure 1/2, Secret Rings, Black Knight, all the Riders games, both Sonic 4 episodes, both Rushes, Jet Set Radio.......all of these have popped right up on iTunes since April 2012. Some of them are even missing songs; Sonic Adventure OST is completely missing most of the area 2 and 3 songs for the action stages. And they don't even have to pay to have the discs printed. Digital trading carNo are uyou fucking kidding me???? Like trading cards, except not real?? This is really pathetic and sad and shameful and I am really embarrassed that they allowed this to happen. Sonic Jump: No one knows exactly what it's going to be, or cares, because it will probably have had no more than 60 total manhours put into development time but still have a price tag of like $6. Keep in mind: these aforementioned cash-ins are ALL since April 2012. It's really painful for me to watch. Most of my life I have just played Sonic, with a few other platformers here and there. But recently I have been playing new games. Games that were a labor of love to make, whose developers actually gave a shit about putting effort into absolutely anything they planned on making money from. LittleBigPlanet is one of these games; Skyrim as well. But then I see this shameless "buy this game AGAIN on NEW SYSTEM" from Sega. It's upsetting in two different ways: realizing that Sega's financial outlook is THIS bad, and seeing the lengths to which they are going to attempt to fix it. The secret to making a lot of money in the video game world is simple: make fresh new games that people will want to buy. There are only so many platforms available onto which they can rehash their IP, and once they run out, they had better have a few diamond-grade titles ready for release, or they will inevitably crash and burn.
While the ports are shameless, it's a simple way to pick up some extra cash so that they can make better games because even their best Sonic games these days sell at a loss. Plus, they're definitely doing something, we simply don't know what it is. All we know exists right now is Sonic and All-Stars racing transformed and Sonic Jump. The latter isn't even a game and the former is a kart racer. The normal Sonic platformer is most likely in development, so we'll see something real again, just have no idea what it is. Unless they're giving new Sonic games a break but that doesn't make sense. Either way it seems like they're taking their time at the very least, and we know Generations isn't getting DLC (WRONG MOVE) so they aren't working on that.
Yeah...to be fair they have been pushing alot of ports out as of late. Would be nice to hear of some new projects along side them, to know that new games are still being made versus just alot of ports. That stand-alone Chao Garden downloadable game could be a gold mine, and Generations DLC would have been a great thing to do while waiting on the next game. It just seems they are trying to take the "easy way out", and quite frankly I don't see it working that well unless they can get some real games in development.
Over half of Sega-Sammy Corps revenue comes from pachinko and pachislot machine sales and it's growing at about 13% as of March quarter 2012. The consumer division accounts for less than a quarter now, and is falling at about 7%, with an operating income of negative 1.5 billion yen. If you were a share holder, what would you demand? The good news is that amusement machines sales are growing at about 9%. Hopefully, Ring Edge is the next Naomi/Neo Geo, and in a few years time I can pick up a board and software collection for 'relatively' cheap.
^ I really wish Sega was bought out by another video game company back in the day and not a fucking glorified slot machine company.
A lot of people haven't played games like Jet Set Radio or NiGHTS because they didn't own a Dreamcast or Saturn. All SEGA is doing is taking advantage of that by putting the games on more platforms so more people can buy them. They aren't forcing you to buy the same game again. Also, SEGA has been doing this for years, before porting Dreamcast games they were porting old Mega Drive games to every console ever. This isn't just being done because of their bad financial situation. If it was, Nintendo wouldn't be porting their old games to 3DS, Wii and Wii U. Same goes for Sony which even kickstarted the whole HD port collection thing and has been selling old PS1 and PS2 games on the Playstation Store. Konami is doing it, Capcom is doing it and Microsoft has done it as well. Every videogame publisher is porting their old games to new consoles now because it's easier to do than ever before. Now they can just put up the games individually on XBLA, PSN and Steam instead of having to compile collections of games so it doesn't seem as much as if they're ripping off their customers. It's just easy money.
Please don't confuse Sega of America with Sega of Japan. IGN will do that. The American arm, responsible for everything you've just listed, has underperformed consistently since about 1994. There's all sorts of fun reasons for this, but none require you to take pity on the company. Sega of America have spent the last ten years commissioning bad ports and publishing odd games. Sonic Team has always been closely associated with the western arms because Sonic doesn't sell amazingly well in Japan. The view on the western world is a strange one, and in these days of globalisation, you can't really have strange views. Sega makes a lot of great arcade games. It has European teams at The Creative Assembly and Sports Interactive making stuff that rarely makes the news but pleases their fans. It still runs (fairly) successful indoor theme parks in Asia, and the products it produces for Japan... tend to sell "well enough" in Japan. They're not market leaders anymore and the Sammy side of the conglomorate has pushed the focus onto the extremely valuable pachinko/pachi-slot market (of which there are virtually no other contenders). My suspicion is that Japanese operations are fine, and western operations suck because Sega of America makes sucky decisions.
I think that this pretty much paints the picture of SoA. http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/SEGA-of-America-Reviews-E4174.htm
I don't understand why such aversion to re-releases, every medium doesn't and it's good to have a look to old works that people didn't know or lost with the time. It's not like you are forced to buy them. In case of Sega, yes they could be done way much better, Sonic CD was one that came to my mind to be one of the great ones others should follow that. But as an general idea, it's a good thing
Seriously? I'd love to see Sega being bought by Nintendo or Sony (specially Sony because all their gaming platforms are awesome).
If Sony bought SEGA, I'd never buy another SEGA title again. Same with Nintendo. Both companies are absolute shit as of late, and I've never liked Sony.
I'm not too bothered. Why should I be? It's not like they're releasing a constant stream of badly made video games in the vein of Sonic 2006 is it? They're re-releasing a port of Sonic Adventure 2 with enhanced features. Everyone was banging on about it for fucking years and it took them a decade to release it since the GameCube version was put out. Everyone bangs on about NiGHTS and how important that game was, so I don't see a problem there either. Jet Set Radio & Crazy Taxi etc. are all your average ports across all sorts of systems and people will buy them if they haven't played them before. Sound tracks on iTunes have been around for ages and that's nothing new. Considering a shitload of people were downloading this music for free it's about time SEGA got in and released official stuff in decent quality. Sonic Jump is just another game in their mobile line which had probably 100 titles back on old mobiles a few years ago. It's not a new trend and for all we know this game could be brilliant. Trading cards are always crap, but someone is bound to buy them. SEGA's on harder times. There's a big competitive market out there and they're struggling and I really don't blame them for releasing stuff as they are. If it means Sonic continues I'm all for it.
You're trying to tell me that it wasn't painful to watch Sonic 06 and the raft of bad side games and SATSR and SATBK, n00neimp0rtant? I think it's just been a history of pain, myself. Nothing's gonna change that, not even success.
Sega doesn't have financial problems, they don't need to be bought out - they are doing just fine. It's just their consumer/software division that is underperforming, and they are downsizing accordingly. If any merger were to happen, I'd like to see an SNK-Playmore + Sega-Sammy merger. More hardcore arcade gaming plz.
Sega was never really "bought out" in the traditional sense. It's more on the lines of a merger. Sega still operates independently, and if they wanted, could probably separate from Sammy. The thing is; and this is purely speculative; if they were to merge or be out-right bought out by another video game company, they would likely have less control over their product. That's probably why Sega went with a company they had nobody inside the video game industry to partner with. In relation to their uncertain financial state, I say it's better they're not going it alone, no matter who they're partnered with. Moreover, I like that Sega has full control over their product line, even knowing that another company's influence could prove beneficial. My concern in all of this is I want Sega's properties to be their own. But to be more successful, they need greater influence, and I think it starts with getting people in the company that have a greater understanding of Sega's history, because I'm not yet convinced that the current people running the show really understand. They seem to be fighting to try and be anything and everything they're not, with odd titles that just don't scream "Sega quality" to me.
I find nothing wrong with what Sega is doing. Yeah they have no shame, but I find no shame in what they're doing. It's their property, they can sell it and repackage it however they choose. I actually prefer what they're doing. The fact that I can obtain Sonic titles on pretty much any platform I choose is convenient and awesome. Bring more titles to more platforms please, Sega
