SEGA to distribute EA games in Japan

[Pao]

Sega and Electronic Arts have formed a new partnership for the Japanese market. Under the deal, which was announced today, Sega will act as distributor for Electronic Arts package games in Japan.

The deal will commence this month with retail orders for Shadows of the Damned, which is due for release on September 22. By August, Sega will be distributing all of EA's titles, new and old.

In a statement today, EA said that it hopes to make use of Sega's distribution channels and management capabilities to expand its sales in the Japanese market.

http://www.andriasang.com/e/blog/2011/0 ... witterfeed

I wonder what Sharky's thought on this  

[George]

Posted it on the front page. Can\'t do worse than EA with Shadows of the Damned, lol.

[Barry the Nomad]

I have to laugh at people elsewhere on the internet moaning about this news. I can't believe people would still think that SEGA holds a grudge against EA for passing on the Dreamcast, and in turn SEGA should snub EA's offer to publish their games.

It's beyond fanboyism, it's pure stupidity.

[George]

Yo SEGA you sold out, EA killed the Dreamcast, don't be helping them foos!

[Team Andromeda]

I have to laugh at people elsewhere on the internet moaning about this news. I can't believe people would still think that SEGA holds a grudge against EA for passing on the Dreamcast, and in turn SEGA should snub EA's offer to publish their games.

It's beyond fanboyism, it's pure stupidity.

Well if SEGA really did think like that, they never would have been making games for SONY (forget EA) and SEGA and EA did come to a deal for SEGA's NASCAR in the Arcades . That said, there's still SEGA fan's that won't buy SONY hardware still to this day

[Sharky]

I'm not really bothered by Sega publishing EA games, whilist I'm not really a fan of 90% of their games or the company. I can't deny that at least they are releasing quality games these days.

I'd be MUCH more angry if Sega was signing a deal for more Marvel games or with a company that is known for crappy games... or unknown like Secret Level.

[Suzuki Yu]

^^
they will not publish their games! from what i learned only distributing.

[CosmicCastaway]

Posted it on the front page. Can\'t do worse than EA with Shadows of the Damned, lol.

True, I've seen practically no advertising for Shadows of the Damned.
I'm happy SEGA is doing this though. Now more people will be able to play these titles.

[Centrale]

Interesting that such a huge publisher as EA couldn't get a good distribution foothold of their own in Japan.

[cube_b3]

Is Japan that irrelevant now?

Imagine if they did this 10 years back.

Well atleast the SEGA/EA wars era is over we can that Peter Moore for this probably.

[Ben]

Interesting that such a huge publisher as EA couldn't get a good distribution foothold of their own in Japan.

Problem is, Japan's incredibly different (culturally) from the West, and a lot of Western publishers (Microsoft) struggle to market their games effectively to a Japanese demographic.

Sega will hopefully help EA out with this, EA has been releasing plenty of quality software in recent months...and more importantly, new IP.

[ROJM]

I'd be MUCH more angry if Sega was signing a deal for more Marvel games or with a company that is known for crappy games... or unknown like Secret Level.

? Disney will probably take over video game rights from Sega at one point. Not that the Marvel deal itself is actually bad.

I have to laugh at people elsewhere on the internet moaning about this news. I can't believe people would still think that SEGA holds a grudge against EA for passing on the Dreamcast, and in turn SEGA should snub EA's offer to publish their games.

It's beyond fanboyism, it's pure stupidity.

Don't you mean EA? EA has gone out of their way to put the boot in at Sega whenever possible, just because of this new deal is happening doesn't mean anything has changed on that front.Not that it'll improve anything considering what happened with the last big publishing deal Sega had with a western company.

Problem is, Japan's incredibly different (culturally) from the West, and a lot of Western publishers (Microsoft) struggle to market their games effectively to a Japanese demographic.

Sega will hopefully help EA out with this, EA has been releasing plenty of quality software in recent months...and more importantly, new IP.

It really has nothing to do with culture as much to do with size. Sega has one of the biggest distrubution channels in japan along with a few others so EA would have either gone with capcom,Square or Konami as an alternative but the SP deal has always been reneowed as one of the best for small companies to get their games out there.

[George]

You seriously think that EA goes out of their way to hate on SEGA? In the end of the day EA cares about sales and numbers. Of course they don't like any other publisher, its a business.

[ROJM]

You seriously think that EA goes out of their way to hate on SEGA? In the end of the day EA cares about sales and numbers. Of course they don't like any other publisher, its a business.

I don't "think", its a fact that they have, through the number of statements that they've made about Sega down the years. They haven't done that with anybody else. So before people start to criticise fellow sega fans about their negative opinions on EA I'd ask them to consider that the company some seem to want to defend is actually worth defending at all.

[Autosaver]

Sega has made many (!bad!) statements about Nintendo and Nintendo still cooperates with Sega. Even giving away their IP to Sega to work on games such as Mario and Sonic.

EA and Sega is no different.