[Skyler]

Source

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January 30, 2015 01:20 AM Eastern Standard Time

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--SEGA of America (SOA), the North American operations for one of the world's leading interactive entertainment companies, today announces its move from San Francisco to Southern California amid a downsizing of the business that will begin from January 2015 to early summer. The announcement was made today by SOA president and COO, John Cheng.

“This move was crucial to keep SEGA operations moving forward throughout North America and to provide our millions of fans a strong pipeline of content across gaming, TV, merchandising, and more,” said Cheng. “We are confident that by relocating to Southern California we will be able to thrive, grow and become a stronger company because of it.”

Relocation packages are being offered to a number of employees, but there will be positions reduced from the company to streamline operations. The total number of employees affected by this move will be realized after the complete transition is finalized in early summer.

Cheng added, “We are sad to say goodbye to some of the best people in the business and are indebted to them for their hard work and dedication through the years.”

SEGA's game release schedule will not be affected by the move. The Sonic Boom television series, currently airing on Cartoon Network in the U.S., will also continue its run through 2015.

About SEGA® of America, Inc.:

SEGA® of America, Inc. is the American arm of Tokyo, Japan-based SEGA® Corporation, a worldwide leader in interactive entertainment both inside and outside the home. The company develops, publishes and distributes interactive entertainment software products for a variety of hardware platforms including PC, wireless devices, and those manufactured by Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. SEGA® of America's Web site is located at www.sega.com

I feel bad for all of the people who will lose their jobs because of this.

[TheKazeblade]

How many more times will Sega be able to sub-divide like this before there's nothing left?

I feel bad for everyone who lost their jobs. Sega certainly hasn't done anything to make themselves attractive to new employees lately. Wish all of the individuals parting ways all the best.

[Skyler]

It gets worse. SEGA as a whole is moving to digital PC and mobile games exclusively.

[Blue Blood]

Skyler, on 30 January 2015 - 05:11 AM, said:

It gets worse. SEGA as a whole is moving to digital PC and mobile games exclusively.

It doesn't explicitly say that anywhere but the headline. It's certainly not unlikely sounding, however. But the way they keep mentioning the Sonic brand at least makes it look as though Sonic is going to continue to press on. In fact, the Notice of Implementation of Structure Reform is worth reading.

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c. Enhancing efficiency in overseas businesses
Local organizations managing packaged game software in Western markets will be streamlined. In the U.S., Sega of America, Inc. based in San Francisco will be relocated to Southern California by this summer and its existing office in San Francisco will be closed thereafter, which results in reducing fixed expenses, mainly in corporate functions. In addition, the Sonic and merchandising businesses will be reinforced to establish a structure which can generate stable profits.

This post has been edited by Blue Blood: 30 January 2015 - 05:39 AM

[Kail]

Yeah I doubt this'll be the end of console SEGA games, I think as far as Sonic is concerned we might be seeing more partnerships with Nintendo or Sony. As bad as the last few games have been, Sonic is still a major player, so I think Nintendo would probably wanna see more of Sonic on the Wii U just for the sake of more games or Sony might step in and help keep the unannounced new-gen game alive like they did with Street Fighter V and Grim Fandango.

[Jason]

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Sega intends to alter operations to focus on mobile and online PC games, which it deems to be its growth areas, as well as its Sonic and merchandising businesses.

And yet there's all this issue with getting PSO2 to the West. Strange.

Considering I only own a mid-range PC and a smartphone for this generation, I'm not too upset. However, this probably also means that there's even less chance of any revivals of underutilized or creation of new IP for some time.

[W.A.C.]

Can't really blame SEGA for going this route. Outside of Alien: Isolation, PC ports, and mobile, they haven't had much success lately. The PC market is also friendlier to games with niche appeal, which is probably why their PC releases have been doing well.

[Yeow]

A shame that people are losing their jobs because of this, but I'm honestly not surprised. The chickens of the overvalued Sonic Boom initiative (along with the Nintendo-exclusive Sonic partnership, the Aliens: Colonial Marines controversy, and pretty much every other shenanigan the publisher has pulled over the last decade), have finally come home to roost at Sega.

Kail, on 30 January 2015 - 05:36 AM, said:

Yeah I doubt this'll be the end of console SEGA games, I think as far as Sonic is concerned we might be seeing more partnerships with Nintendo or Sony. As bad as the last few games have been, Sonic is still a major player, so I think Nintendo would probably wanna see more of Sonic on the Wii U just for the sake of more games or Sony might step in and help keep the unannounced new-gen game alive like they did with Street Fighter V and Grim Fandango.

The three Nintendo-exclusive Sonic games underperforming / bombing has pretty much put the kibosh on any chance of Sega striking up another console exclusive partnership for Sonic. The PS4 could end up selling 50 million units by this year's end and I'm sure Sega would still consider it too risky regardless.

This post has been edited by Yeow: 30 January 2015 - 07:06 AM

[Dark Sonic]

Hey Sega maybe start taking some of your franchises more seriously. You can't afford to fuck up, or sammy's going to cut you off like a cancerous tumor.

This fucking company. Run by fucking idiots. Honestly, the only thing I like about Sega at this point are some of it's franchises. Sell Sonic and Super Monkey Ball to some competent publishers or developers, and then just shut down. I'm sick of you existing at this point.

This post has been edited by Dark Sonic: 30 January 2015 - 07:46 AM

[Spanner]

To think the last console Sonic game was Sonic Boom.

How disgusting, what a way to top it all off.

[MamboCat]

Surely after the mess that was Boom, someone's head was going to roll.

It's just that in these situations, it's usually the wrong people who get the boot, in this case 300 employees.

They're the folks I feel sorry for.

[Dissident]

It's hard to feel sympathy for the company as a whole when they did this shit to themselves.

I hope the good people that got fired land on their feet, at least.

[Lanzer]

Same, my condolences to the people who got fired its never fun losing your job no matter how crappy.

I do hope this isn't the end of the console sonic games, I really don't want Sonic Boom to be the last console game we see. also, I wonder if the comic will be hit by this?

[Xeal]

I feel really bad for the people who are going to lose their jobs due to this. I totally understand their new found focus on mobile and PC games, I just hope that whatever they do doesn't affect series (I.e. Sonic) that are mainly on consoles (which the article makes it seem to appear as such). But again this is SEGA, so I won't take their word for it. Something bad is bound to happen.

This post has been edited by Xeal: 30 January 2015 - 10:04 AM

[Lanzer]

easy breakdown of todays events thanks to NeoGAF:

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Okay, I also added this in case it isn't clear.

Quick Breakdown:
-Sega is continuing their refocus to digital games.

-As part of this, they're downsizing their Western publishing business (but not their Western development studios), and staff in their arcade game department in Japan. They're also transferring the staff they can to mobile/PC Online in particular.

-So far 120 layoffs have been announced at Sega West, primarily in Sega of America and some in Sega of Europe (this is the publishing business, not the studios).

-Sega intends 300 layoffs total, with a notable portion of that presumably coming from the arcade business in Japan.

-They're plausibly also changing what some of their staff work on - and we've certainly seen that over time from Sega - but that's not directly related to the layoffs we're talking about today. The layoffs are focused on business components that can't easily be transferred to digital, which are primarily retail publishing resources and physical devices like arcade machines.