Sega Lays off 73 People

I feel uneasy about this. Downloadable games are a great idea and all, but the American company has far more resources that could be used to do other stuff with. I'm not quite understanding their decision here.

 

Well...Mike Hayes (right?) was the head of EU before becoming the sole head of the West, so I assume he is playing favorites maybe? :P

 

We'll have to wait and see. Too bad about those 73 people, but they'll probably have more luck finding a job than I'm currently having, since they have, well, resumes, and stuff.

 

If they really wanted to have one of their divisions do nothing but handle downloadable games, why not SEGA Europe? Frankly, it's not like they do much; meanwhile, SoJ is the bulk of the company and SoA does some stuff every once in a while.

 

SEGA of Japan isn't being changed at all, is it? All I've heard is that the West's being restructured. I don't seem to recall SEGA of America actually doing a whole lot in terms of development that's worth thinking about.

 

I was only mentioning SoJ for the sake of naming all three branches.

 

Did Sega actually have any development studios in the US apart from Secret Level?

 

I don't know of any.

Does Secret Level develop any games worth thinking about?

 

Sega seem to forget that it was the Americans which gave Sega and Sonic its global appeal. They should be given MORE responsibilities, not less. Since the Dreamcast days, Sega has been waaaay too Japan friendly, rest of the world be damned.

 

Sumo Digital is an independent studio. Its existence has nothing to do with whether SEGA West gets restructured or not.

 

fix'd

Well this sucks, some of the best SEGA games come from America. SoJ is so fucking self-centered and think it's all about their games.

 

Just realised something, a while ago there was rumour that sega were going to look at improving their iphone app's instead of just rushing out rom dumps (lol sonic 2 only came out last week!) and so the genesis collection app was scrapped along with something else, I guess this falls into their digital plans.

Now I wonder if we are still looking at that iphone sonic cd remake...

 

SEGA makes games other than Sonic.

 

See the part where I said Sega AND Sonic.

 

That still doesn't validate giving them more responsibility due to the accomplishments of a previous administration.

I don't think Tom Kalinske still works at SEGA.

 

I wonder how RubyEclipse feel about this SOA direction? Maybe he sees downloadable games as a good future?

 

This. Else I imagine there's little reason left to keep the San Francisco offices open outside of a bare bones crew.

If he has an opinion, he's not gonna share it in public, and wisely so—unless he's content with getting pink slip #74.

 

I agree with this. Japan never gave a shit about Sega anyway.