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Gaming => General Gaming Discussion => Topic started by: ROJM on December 11, 2012, 04:01:25 am

Title: Sega sues Profesor Layton(actually Level 5)over patents
Post by: ROJM on December 11, 2012, 04:01:25 am
Hope they win, they need all the moolah they can get....

This can end up in two ways,This ends up the same way that the EA/Fox lawsuit did,which resulted in a few games for Sega or it gets thrown out of court, worst case scenario sega loses.



Quote



http://www.vg247.com/2012/12/11/inazuma-eleven-sega-suing-level-5-over-touch-mechanic/



 Sega is suing Professor Layton developer Level-5 over touch screen controls in the DS version of Inazuma Eleven, its popular football RPG series. Sega is calling for the halting of all sales of the game in Japan. Get the details below.

Yomiuri Online reports that the dispute stems from touch screen patents filed by Sega that lets players move on-screen characters using the Nintendo DS touch screen with your finger or a stylus pen. The company claim that Level-5 has infringed on those patents.

Initial hearings were heard on December 7th so the case has essentially begun. Sega is asking for ¥900 million / $11 million in damages over the infringement, however the case recalls Microsoft’s recent brush with Motorola.

The case saw a Californian judge deem Motorola’s online patents as essential to the acceptable standard of what consumers expect from modern game consoles, and therefore ruled that no one company can claim outright ownership.

Touch is essential to the way Nintendo DS functions, so it could end up that Sega’s suit is rejected. However, similar to the Motorola ruling – in which the company may have a window to pursue royalties for use of its tech – Sega may be able to seek royalties if its damage claim is rejected.
Title: Re: Sega sues Profesor Layton(actually Level 5)over patents
Post by: Aki-at on December 11, 2012, 04:14:42 am
SEGA is going to win. If they won a suit against Namco for Tekken 2's training mode, they'll win this one too I'm sure.

Hate the patent trolling though.
Title: Re: Sega sues Profesor Layton(actually Level 5)over patents
Post by: ROJM on December 11, 2012, 04:21:36 am
Patent Trolling?
Title: Re: Sega sues Profesor Layton(actually Level 5)over patents
Post by: Nameless 24 on December 11, 2012, 05:51:10 am
One poorish gaming company sues another poorish gaming company.

Shouldn't they all just get along? Level 5 are only doing well in Ilzuma Eleven anyway (and THAT is what SEGA are suing them for!)
Title: Re: Sega sues Profesor Layton(actually Level 5)over patents
Post by: JetSetRadioForever on December 11, 2012, 05:55:11 am
Patent Trolling?

Basically, owning a patent for the sole reason of bringing litigation and attempted profiting from said litigation.

Yeah, it's only 900 million yen/11 million USD but Sega is embarrassing itself.
Title: Re: Sega sues Profesor Layton(actually Level 5)over patents
Post by: Aki-at on December 11, 2012, 06:54:21 am
One poorish gaming company sues another poorish gaming company.

Shouldn't they all just get along? Level 5 are only doing well in Ilzuma Eleven anyway (and THAT is what SEGA are suing them for!)

SEGA is not poor.

Yeah, it's only 900 million yen/11 million USD but Sega is embarrassing itself.

Japanese companies do this all the time, SEGA is currently being sued for their Magical V Engine.
Title: Re: Sega sues Profesor Layton(actually Level 5)over patents
Post by: Barry the Nomad on December 11, 2012, 08:36:32 am
Didn't Namco patent the concept of having mini-games during loading screens? I forgot the details of the patent, but I thought the key bit was that it was a literal game within a game with no bearing on the actual game being loaded, and there were objectives and scores within the mini-game.
Title: Re: Sega sues Profesor Layton(actually Level 5)over patents
Post by: STORM! on December 11, 2012, 08:50:21 am
  Sega could not be doing good on CS sales, but they stills a powerful company, even more in Japan, even more with Sammy on board.

 Sega is basically the one who has destroyed SNK and Data East. The company Aruze was the owner of SNK, and Sega Sammy has won every each lawsuit on courch against Aruze. The company has gone...

 Sega has 1,238 patents registered (not counting the filials companies patents). Level 5 has 0, zero patents.

 Famous Sega's patents:

- character morphing
- lock-on system... etc...

 Sega uses touch-screen on games long long time before DS has came to light. But on this case, L5 is using the same system Sega has created for a soccer game (probably that cancelled game called Touch Striker).

 Take a look at what Sega is talking about:

http://gigazine.net/news/20121211-sega-inazuma/

 Some people are saying that if Level 5 loses, they will probably not survive...

 I think that Sega is 100% correct here.
Title: Re: Sega sues Profesor Layton(actually Level 5)over patents
Post by: Kori-Maru on December 11, 2012, 01:26:53 pm
And that's the reason why I love SegaBits. Some good info from our two forum members.
Title: Re: Sega sues Profesor Layton(actually Level 5)over patents
Post by: Barry the Nomad on December 11, 2012, 02:31:17 pm
Agreed, Kori. Nobody here calling SEGA selfish or evil, just pure facts.
Title: Re: Sega sues Profesor Layton(actually Level 5)over patents
Post by: SEGA_Portuguese on December 11, 2012, 03:36:52 pm
I think there is something strange about this.

SEGA sued EA and Namco in the past. Few people know, but the original creator of Tekken was a member of AM2. Yu Suzuki said that on an interview. He was salty as hell, because the dude left SEGA to Namco.

In the case of EA, Patcher said that EA did serious damage to SEGA, in some drama about their sports division (this was after the Dreamcast).

I don't think SEGA sued Namco and EA because of the money, they sued because they were angry.

I am wondering if there is some problem between SEGA and Level 5, because...i know SEGA is right, but i read the same thing that STORM read, that Level 5 will have serious problem with this. If SEGA is doing this just for the money, i mean, is really worthy? Just call them and say, "look, stop this shit".

The dude from L5, Hino, has a lot of haters, i don't know the reason. I wonder if he is a bad person.
Title: Re: Sega sues Profesor Layton(actually Level 5)over patents
Post by: Radrappy on December 11, 2012, 04:58:41 pm
regardless of if Sega has a good case for this, it is garnering some pretty bad press for the company as a whole.  Level 5 has been a media darling for a few years now with games like Layton, Inazuma, and Ni no Kuni.  Ironically even Sega's own Rhythm heaven owes a lot to Level 5 stylistically and presentation wise.
Title: Re: Sega sues Profesor Layton(actually Level 5)over patents
Post by: STORM! on December 12, 2012, 04:56:49 am
  Seriously, Sega is not the evil on this case. It was already confirmed that Sega was in talk with Level 5 since October,2011.... for nine months consecutive they were trying to solve the case without a lawsuit, but Level 5 has done nothing.

 Do you remember True Fantasy Live Online? Looks like that Level 5 had issues on that project that forced them to cancel it...
Title: Re: Sega sues Profesor Layton(actually Level 5)over patents
Post by: ROJM on December 12, 2012, 11:04:55 am
Here's L5 remarks..

Quote
Level-5's argument is based around the fact that the first Inazuma Eleven game was released in August 2008, which, according to Level-5, is before Sega received its first patent in 2009. The second patent was granted in 2011. Level-5 noted that there were games that used touch pen controls before Sega filed for these patents.

"As a result of examining these discrepancies," Level-5 stated, "we've concluded that there is no patent violation."

Moreover, Level-5 pointed out that controlling characters via touch pen has spread throughout gaming and has become a fundamental mechanic.

"While Inazuma Eleven does not violate Sega's patent, we do recognize that Sega's lawsuit could restrict choices in gaming from here on out as well as hindering the growth of the game industry."

Level-5 said the lawsuit makes the company "uncomfortable", and it plans to fight it in court

Well from reading the usual "Sega lost its way "and "why are they picking on poor L5" and that from uninformed idiot gamers, all i'm going to say about this statement and the people supporting L5...absolute baulderdash. If it wasn't for Sega half of the things that today's gamers enjoy just simple wouldn't exist. Sandbox gaming, QTE, the whole switch camera viewpoint and many other things originated with Sega titles, yet time and time again, we see Sega never really making a profit with the titles that pioneer these things but some johnny come lately pratically use the same thing for their game and make tons of more more money. I hope Sega wins this case because the industry takes the piss out of Sega, stealing its countless ideas and then dismisses the company with half the gaming press and gamers as some type of novety and joke. Hindering the groweth of the industry/ If it wasn't for sega the industry wouldn't hardly exist as we know it. People are harping about the Wii U and even the originality of the first Wii when anyone with a brain can see that those systems were Dreamcast inspired. If Sega can't make money out of their games so be it but that doesnt mean all the R+D poured into the different engines and techniques they have created should be ransacked by oppoutunists.
Title: Re: Sega sues Profesor Layton(actually Level 5)over patents
Post by: Autosaver on December 12, 2012, 10:43:04 pm
Yes, those "idiot" gamers. How dare they stick up for Level-5 when the game was completed BEFORE the patent was given.

Game Completion: 2008
Patent: 2009

Level 5 has said they plan to fight back - it takes AGES to LOSE this bad.
Title: Re: Sega sues Profesor Layton(actually Level 5)over patents
Post by: Radrappy on December 12, 2012, 11:10:47 pm
Yeah, the whole this is really embarrassing.  Of all the companies to pick a fight with, Level 5?!  Good natured, innovative, and well loved Level 5??  Im even more surprised by how everyone on the forum jumped on Sega's side with this one.  It's a ridiculous lawsuit and is going to end in Level 5's favor.  Talk about a PR disaster. 
Title: Re: Sega sues Profesor Layton(actually Level 5)over patents
Post by: jonboy101 on December 13, 2012, 12:27:34 am
Yes, those "idiot" gamers. How dare they stick up for Level-5 when the game was completed BEFORE the patent was given.

Game Completion: 2008
Patent: 2009

Level 5 has said they plan to fight back - it takes AGES to LOSE this bad.

I'm not sure Joe is arguing that they're idiots for defending Level 5, per se (and I have been known to misread him before), but rather, that the industry is, in general, full of ungrateful idiots who get a good laugh at Sega's products and innovations - which then become industry standard half a decade later. I think he makes a legitimate point.

There is one really fantastic interview Yu gave back in the mid 90s, describing the dual processing design of the Saturn. He argued that only about one in one hundred programmers would be able to maximize the potential of Saturn's engines; that the Saturn is a much more capable machine than a Playstation in the right hands, but that most "junk" programmers would rather just use the Playstation programming libraries and be done with it.

This, to me, illustrates a very serious problem that existed in the industry in the 90s, and one that has only become worse in the last decade. Yu's junk programmers are becoming more common. There no longer seems to be any real innovation in the market. Many of the most amazing games and ideas have come from Sega, or people talented enough to work Sega's hardware. Generally speaking, these efforts were rarely appreciated in their original incarnation. The latest incarnation in a game series the Smithsonian deems culturally significant, Virtua Fighter 5, has sold around one million copies, worldwide, in five years. It's competitor, if you could call it that, Tekken 6, sold three millions in five months.

The same was true of hardware. The Wii Mote is something Sega was teasing us with in the 90s; a new Dreamcast controller for Air NiGHTS. The Wii U is just a VMU with a decade of technology thrown on. Kinect is, of course, just a new Activator. I can enjoy 3D TV games on my MasterSystem. I can download games onto an XBOX, much like I could with a MegaDrive and a cable subscription. I would almost hazard to say that we haven't seen much innovation at all in terms of hardware since Sega left the market; simply better ways of giving us things more cheaply than Sega was giving us decades ago.

Sega is often ripped off by these lazy designers and junk programmers. Sega spent millions of dollars researching and developing ideas like the VMU or the Air NiGHT controller, or online platform gaming (and which directions that would take) or cell shading, or sandbox games, or voice recognition, or the watercolor look of Valkyrie of the Battlefield, or Shenmue's FREE system, or any other damn thing. They have every right to get indignant when companies like EA take an entire game and just slap a coat of Simpson's paint on it - and then that game sells as well, or better, than Sega's original product.

I have no idea if Level 5 is in the wrong. I don't think that was the point Joe was making, though I could be mistaken. I simply think its frustrating for an entire industry to laugh at your wild schemes, wait five years and have Sony or Nintendo or EA do the same thing and be called brilliant, and then be spat upon and called washed up. I think those are the sort of people - the lazy designers, the junk programmers, and the consumers who support them - that Joe called idiotic.
Title: Re: Sega sues Profesor Layton(actually Level 5)over patents
Post by: Aki-at on December 13, 2012, 03:50:54 am
Yes, those "idiot" gamers. How dare they stick up for Level-5 when the game was completed BEFORE the patent was given.

Game Completion: 2008
Patent: 2009

Level 5 has said they plan to fight back - it takes AGES to LOSE this bad.

The original patent was filed in 2004 according to some. Furthermore they have already made arcade football titles using this technology and had one released for the DS in the same time as the original IE.

(http://i.imgur.com/1loH2.jpg)

Game looks remarkably like the patent outlined.

Yeah, the whole this is really embarrassing.  Of all the companies to pick a fight with, Level 5?!  Good natured, innovative, and well loved Level 5??  Im even more surprised by how everyone on the forum jumped on Sega's side with this one.  It's a ridiculous lawsuit and is going to end in Level 5's favor.  Talk about a PR disaster.

Why would it end up in Level 5's favour? SEGA forced Namco to remove buttons that light up in Tekken 2's training mode. As ridiculous as software patents are, SEGA has a very good history of always ending up on top in court cases when evidence is stacked against them; see Ulala's character design.
Title: Re: Sega sues Profesor Layton(actually Level 5)over patents
Post by: CrazyT on December 13, 2012, 07:33:22 am
This thing is getting terrible publicity for SEGA. I do find it kind of strange. How does this make the relationship between SEGA and level 5? But not just that, how does this affect the company's respect in general? Is this stuff normal?

Cuz I would say the money isn't worth it if the company's respect goes down. I remember people loving and respecting SEGA. A lot of companies have worked together with SEGA and I felt like SEGA was really cool when it came to things like this.

This whole patent thing is ridiculous. As much as some wanna argue SEGA is right theoretically. Suing a company for such a minor thing, for so much money, sounds very greedy.

The general consensus everywhere else is that it is very low and that SEGA with their terrible games should back off from a company that is today known for very great things.

*sigh

Yes, those "idiot" gamers. How dare they stick up for Level-5 when the game was completed BEFORE the patent was given.

Game Completion: 2008
Patent: 2009

Level 5 has said they plan to fight back - it takes AGES to LOSE this bad.
Yo, is everything alright?
Title: Re: Sega sues Profesor Layton(actually Level 5)over patents
Post by: jonboy101 on December 13, 2012, 07:50:47 am
It isn't low. Sega patented a form of gameplay. Level 5 infringed. The recent quality of Sega's games has nothing to do with it. Perhaps Level 5 ought to be more creative.
Title: Re: Sega sues Profesor Layton(actually Level 5)over patents
Post by: Barry the Nomad on December 13, 2012, 08:05:24 am
I think it's high time to news this. I'll admit, I held off because i was thinking *cough* some OTHER writers might post something for once. Also, we didn't know all of the facts... and seemingly still don't.
Title: Re: Sega sues Profesor Layton(actually Level 5)over patents
Post by: CrazyT on December 13, 2012, 08:06:15 am
Not saying i'm agreeing with that general consensus jon, but it just sux that it is affecting SEGA's name in the wrong way. I mean even articles have a negative tone towards SEGA with this news.

Recently at destructoid for example Jim sterling doing his thing like he always does  (http://www.destructoid.com/sega-to-sue-level-5-for-patent-infringement-240425.phtml), and the highest voted comment is
Quote
First the Shining Force debacle and now this?!?!?! Sega, you need to check yourself before you wreck yourself.

Why is it that everyone is interpreting this whole thing the wrong way?
Title: Re: Sega sues Profesor Layton(actually Level 5)over patents
Post by: Barry the Nomad on December 13, 2012, 08:58:03 am
I wrote up an editorial, check it out: http://segabits.com/blog/2012/12/13/editorial-sega-sues-level-5-over-patent-violations/
Title: Re: Sega sues Profesor Layton(actually Level 5)over patents
Post by: Nameless 24 on December 13, 2012, 09:38:59 am
SEGA is not poor.

They are certainly richer then me and you, but as a business, it's not exactly up there with Capcom or Konami these days....Level 5 and ATLUS is more of a realistic comparison.

Still....SEGA suing would either mean they have a legit reason to sue them or it's the classic "Big fish over little fish" scenario companies unfortunately take sometimes.

Either way, I am not going to be biased over SEGA on this one until we found out what's the whole business is about.

I actually hope that no one comes out of this affected. As much as I love SEGA, Level 5 are a very legit developer that we need in this day and age of Japanese games that appeal to everyone.
Title: Re: Sega sues Profesor Layton(actually Level 5)over patents
Post by: Barry the Nomad on December 13, 2012, 10:31:14 am
SEGA, as a business, on par with Level-5?

Quote
Level-5 Inc. (株式会社レベルファイブ Kabushiki-gaisha Reberu Faibu?) is an independent video game developer and publisher based in Fukuoka, Japan. The company, which currently employs about 200 individuals, was founded in October 1998 by Akihiro Hino after he departed from the now defunct Japanese developer Riverhillsoft. Hino designs, plans and produces all of Level-5’s games, as well as serving as both President and CEO of the company.

Doesn't sound comprable to SEGA to me. I'm sure Aki will roll in here with the numbers, but I'm certain SEGA is up there. Heck, they've gotta be bigger than Capcom and Konami. Looking at Revenue/Net Income cited on wikipedia:

SEGA Corp
Revenue    ¥396.7 billion (2011) US $4.9 billion
Net income    ¥41.5 billion (2011) US $512.857 million

Capcom
Revenue    ¥66.8 billion / US$728.1 million (2010)
Net income    ¥2.2 billion / US$23.6 million (2010)

Konami
Revenue    ¥265.758 billion (US$3.24 billion) (2012)
Operating income    ¥40.950 billion (US$401 million) (2012)
Net income    ¥23.012 billion (US$113 million) (2012)
Title: Re: Sega sues Profesor Layton(actually Level 5)over patents
Post by: Aki-at on December 13, 2012, 11:17:59 am
They are certainly richer then me and you, but as a business, it's not exactly up there with Capcom or Konami these days....Level 5 and ATLUS is more of a realistic comparison.

SEGA by themselves would be in a worse condition than either of those companies, yes. However they are part of the SEGA Sammy group and are much stronger than either company, they hold about $2 billion cash reserves vs $750 mil debt.
Title: Re: Sega sues Profesor Layton(actually Level 5)over patents
Post by: ROJM on December 13, 2012, 11:29:39 am
I'm not sure Joe is arguing that they're idiots for defending Level 5, per se (and I have been known to misread him before), but rather, that the industry is, in general, full of ungrateful idiots who get a good laugh at Sega's products and innovations - which then become industry standard half a decade later. I think he makes a legitimate point.

There is one really fantastic interview Yu gave back in the mid 90s, describing the dual processing design of the Saturn. He argued that only about one in one hundred programmers would be able to maximize the potential of Saturn's engines; that the Saturn is a much more capable machine than a Playstation in the right hands, but that most "junk" programmers would rather just use the Playstation programming libraries and be done with it.

This, to me, illustrates a very serious problem that existed in the industry in the 90s, and one that has only become worse in the last decade. Yu's junk programmers are becoming more common. There no longer seems to be any real innovation in the market. Many of the most amazing games and ideas have come from Sega, or people talented enough to work Sega's hardware. Generally speaking, these efforts were rarely appreciated in their original incarnation. The latest incarnation in a game series the Smithsonian deems culturally significant, Virtua Fighter 5, has sold around one million copies, worldwide, in five years. It's competitor, if you could call it that, Tekken 6, sold three millions in five months.

The same was true of hardware. The Wii Mote is something Sega was teasing us with in the 90s; a new Dreamcast controller for Air NiGHTS. The Wii U is just a VMU with a decade of technology thrown on. Kinect is, of course, just a new Activator. I can enjoy 3D TV games on my MasterSystem. I can download games onto an XBOX, much like I could with a MegaDrive and a cable subscription. I would almost hazard to say that we haven't seen much innovation at all in terms of hardware since Sega left the market; simply better ways of giving us things more cheaply than Sega was giving us decades ago.

Sega is often ripped off by these lazy designers and junk programmers. Sega spent millions of dollars researching and developing ideas like the VMU or the Air NiGHT controller, or online platform gaming (and which directions that would take) or cell shading, or sandbox games, or voice recognition, or the watercolor look of Valkyrie of the Battlefield, or Shenmue's FREE system, or any other damn thing. They have every right to get indignant when companies like EA take an entire game and just slap a coat of Simpson's paint on it - and then that game sells as well, or better, than Sega's original product.

I have no idea if Level 5 is in the wrong. I don't think that was the point Joe was making, though I could be mistaken. I simply think its frustrating for an entire industry to laugh at your wild schemes, wait five years and have Sony or Nintendo or EA do the same thing and be called brilliant, and then be spat upon and called washed up. I think those are the sort of people - the lazy designers, the junk programmers, and the consumers who support them - that Joe called idiotic.

And for that you get a Kudos from me. :)



The original patent was filed in 2004 according to some. Furthermore they have already made arcade football titles using this technology and had one released for the DS in the same time as the original IE.

(http://i.imgur.com/1loH2.jpg)

Game looks remarkably like the patent outlined.

Why would it end up in Level 5's favour? SEGA forced Namco to remove buttons that light up in Tekken 2's training mode. As ridiculous as software patents are, SEGA has a very good history of always ending up on top in court cases when evidence is stacked against them; see Ulala's character design.

Sega's been using this touch tech for a very long time now, the most recent being BORDERBREAK and a few of their latest arcade titles but historically, Yu Suzuki's PSY PHI used this tech regardless that the game itself only made it to local testing, it still exists. Just because the patent was approved in 2009 really doesn't mean they weren't the first to use it. Usually a patent can take years to be approved. And that's down to investigating whether or not Sega was the first to use this type of tech, if they were then the patent becomes official. Obviously Sega passed that test or they wouldn't have gotten the patent to begin with.


And to the guy who's trying to be sarcastic with me, again i call them idiots. These people won't bother to do the research and find the truth that Sega has at least a strong case here. I call them idiots because they listen to biasied zealots running "nuetral" gaming websites who take every little oppurtunity to bash Sega at every turn. I call them idiots because these fools scorn a company responsible for the way our industry is.Ungrateful idiots who act like they're smart yet doesn't use the very technology that they use to voice their distaste against Sega  at the top of their bandwidth, to actually find out whether or not what these "nuetral" websites is telling the truth or not. Years ago in the era of print media you could forgive such ignorance but in the age of the internet where such information is partically a click away? No excuse. It wouldn't matter if Sega was in the right to these people. Their real problem is the fact that Sega is sueing the creators of a popular game and that's the real crime here. And that's the most idiotic thing of all. It doesn't matter if sega is getting a bad press from this, they always going to get a bad press regardless if they are guilty or not.because unfortunatly we still have game journos who think they are still living in the nineties and want to do their bit in getting one over on Sega for daring to challenge their all fave system Nintendo and to a lesser degree Sony.
Title: Re: Sega sues Profesor Layton(actually Level 5)over patents
Post by: jonboy101 on December 13, 2012, 02:35:43 pm
Not saying i'm agreeing with that general consensus jon, but it just sux that it is affecting SEGA's name in the wrong way. I mean even articles have a negative tone towards SEGA with this news.

Recently at destructoid for example Jim sterling doing his thing like he always does  (http://www.destructoid.com/sega-to-sue-level-5-for-patent-infringement-240425.phtml), and the highest voted comment is
Why is it that everyone is interpreting this whole thing the wrong way?

It would not matter how blatant the patent violation is or might be; Level 5 could pirate Shenmue and the media would let them get way with it because of who they are and who Sega is.

The real irony, of course, is the sudden perception of Sega as the big soulless corporation. Dragon on a pile of gold indeed. Poor washed up Sega, who everyone thought went broke ten years ago, is suddenly Goliath.
Title: Re: Sega sues Profesor Layton(actually Level 5)over patents
Post by: jonboy101 on December 13, 2012, 02:37:20 pm
They are certainly richer then me and you, but as a business, it's not exactly up there with Capcom or Konami these days....Level 5 and ATLUS is more of a realistic comparison.

Still....SEGA suing would either mean they have a legit reason to sue them or it's the classic "Big fish over little fish" scenario companies unfortunately take sometimes.

Either way, I am not going to be biased over SEGA on this one until we found out what's the whole business is about.

I actually hope that no one comes out of this affected. As much as I love SEGA, Level 5 are a very legit developer that we need in this day and age of Japanese games that appeal to everyone.

Fairly sure Sega is the largest Japanese third party company.
Title: Re: Sega sues Profesor Layton(actually Level 5)over patents
Post by: semmie on December 14, 2012, 08:53:04 am
SEGA, as a business, on par with Level-5?

Doesn't sound comprable to SEGA to me. I'm sure Aki will roll in here with the numbers, but I'm certain SEGA is up there. Heck, they've gotta be bigger than Capcom and Konami. Looking at Revenue/Net Income cited on wikipedia:

SEGA Corp
Revenue    ¥396.7 billion (2011) US $4.9 billion
Net income    ¥41.5 billion (2011) US $512.857 million

Capcom
Revenue    ¥66.8 billion / US$728.1 million (2010)
Net income    ¥2.2 billion / US$23.6 million (2010)

Konami
Revenue    ¥265.758 billion (US$3.24 billion) (2012)
Operating income    ¥40.950 billion (US$401 million) (2012)
Net income    ¥23.012 billion (US$113 million) (2012)

plus 2

like i said. sega is mighty in the bizz. all the mofo,s here keep bashing that sega is poor. they could make stuff nobody can.

thx for the hyping up of my sincere optimism
Title: Re: Sega sues Profesor Layton(actually Level 5)over patents
Post by: Nameless 24 on December 14, 2012, 09:13:53 am
SEGA by themselves would be in a worse condition than either of those companies, yes. However they are part of the SEGA Sammy group and are much stronger than either company, they hold about $2 billion cash reserves vs $750 mil debt.

Fair enough. I agree with that.

I don't think SEGA are in a bad situation, but I wouldn't say they are as influential as some may think in the Gaming Industry....it's a sad state of affairs when Konami makes MGS and Castlevania and it makes more then Sonic (or even SMB). Level 5 aren't exactly rich, but I know many people who know of their games, particularly Ilzuma Eleven and Professor Layton.

Fairly sure Sega is the largest Japanese third party company.

Nope, Namco (or Scamco..take your pick), is the largest third party japanese company...SEGA is fourth iirc.