Today, I'm in a pretty sour mood...

[MadeManG74]

Barry: I don't think Rythm Thief is in trouble since it's out like, next week or something (although it's worth noting that in Australia it's being distributed by Nintendo, and not Sega. I wonder if this is common around the world?).

As for Anarchy Reigns, I think that it's also not in trouble, at this point in it's cycle I think Sega would probably lose more money by dropping it than releasing it. Unless they palm it off to someone else (which probably isn't easy since Sega must own the IP, and owns Bayonetta/Jack etc).

As you said though, a lot of their best titles that we really enjoy are the ones that are safest at this point. The one title that I'm legitimately worried about is a sequel to Bayonetta. The first game was a success, but is it safe enough to warrant a sequel or would Sega rather hold fire on it? The fact that there hasn't been so much as a rumour since last year's TGS is a bit concerning for the future of our favourite witch.

[stevetheman90]

All star racing 2 might be lost? Now that will suck...

[Barry the Nomad]

It's hard to say at this point. SASASR2 isn't a AAA title, but it does fall under the Sonic banner and is basically an IP orgy. If they play up the Sonic-ness of it in adverts and throw in a few popular IPs, it should be okay.

I agree with Mademan, I think too much money was already put into RT and AR for them to be shifted elsewhere. I think it would be wise of SEGA to releases what has been announced and quietly can unannounced games. That way it won't look so grim to fans and investors. Can you imagine all the negative press SEGA would get if they canned those games now?

[max_cady]

@Aki-at

To be fair, Aki, since GAME was having it's credit crunch, I'm not surprised that basically every major game released these last two months have had dismal sales due to them not being able to stock pre-order goods in time.

It's sucks even for harder of SEGA because UK and Europe are vital strategic strongholds.

Anyway, I feel a little better now that I've read the PR today.

[Barry the Nomad]

Kotaku did a sloppy job reporting the news: http://kotaku.com/5898026/sega-of-america-walloped-by-layoffs-western-publishing-reduced-to-sonic-and-three-others

1. The four IPs were examples of what SEGA considered strong IPs, they weren't the only four to be focused on. Key word was "SUCH AS" in the SEGA West statement:

Due to the challenging economic climate and significant changes within the interactive gaming industry, SEGA has made the decision to consolidate its publishing business in order to focus on developing digital content and driving its existing IP such as Sonic the Hedgehog, Total War, Football Manager and the Aliens franchise. This realignment of the business around existing and digital IP is a necessity to ensure that SEGA continues to invest and enhance its digital business offering, whilst reducing its reliance on traditional packaged goods.

So it is not limited to, but it does include the four IPs mentioned. SEGA could very well also consider IPs like Virtua Tennis, Virtua Fighter and Bayonetta.

2. JSR isn't going anywhere, and this news does not kill off the idea of Shenmue HD. It's clearly said in the same paragraph that SEGA would like to drive digital content. The Genesis, Saturn and Dreamcast rereleases fall perfectly into that category. Rereleases that surely cost little to port, and yield high sales.

It just bugs me to see Kotaku, which has a large readership, doing such a shit job reporting the news.

[SOUP]

It's too bad took all of this to get them to focus on digital releases.
Say what you will about Nintendo, but they do a pretty good job of monetizing their older properties.

SEGA has so many amazing franchises that they just don't take advantage of. Hopefully now we'll start to see more ports of their Saturn and Dreamcast titles. I'm sure this could get them more revenue than poorly done licenced titles.

[max_cady]

Barry, never... ever put "Kotaku" and "news" in the same sentence!

[George]

Feedback for Kotaku is so bad that they'll ban you if you correct them.

[max_cady]

Their website layout is enough to drive me insane.

But anyway, outside of Joystiq.com, other websites based on my twitter feed are taking a lot of time to issue the official statement.

[Radrappy]

guys this restructuring has been a long time coming.  The only sega game to sell decently in the past ten years had mario in the title.  Even sonic is barely moving 2 million units these days.  It's time for a new business model.   

[max_cady]

Nobody's arguing about that...

SEGA should've gone more mainstream at least from Xbox 1 onwards. Take a cure from Activision and focus those resources on the strongest brands.

[nuckles87]

Kotaku did a sloppy job reporting the news: http://kotaku.com/5898026/sega-of-america-walloped-by-layoffs-western-publishing-reduced-to-sonic-and-three-others

1. The four IPs were examples of what SEGA considered strong IPs, they weren't the only four to be focused on. Key word was "SUCH AS" in the SEGA West statement:

So it is not limited to, but it does include the four IPs mentioned. SEGA could very well also consider IPs like Virtua Tennis, Virtua Fighter and Bayonetta.

2. JSR isn't going anywhere, and this news does not kill off the idea of Shenmue HD. It's clearly said in the same paragraph that SEGA would like to drive digital content. The Genesis, Saturn and Dreamcast rereleases fall perfectly into that category. Rereleases that surely cost little to port, and yield high sales.

It just bugs me to see Kotaku, which has a large readership, doing such a shit job reporting the news.

lol, I've never understood the appeal of Kotaku. They OFTEN do a shitty job reporting the news. I've often seen them post trolling and biased nonsense as "articles".

The problem with a lot of these quick fire news blogs these days, Kotaku and GoNintendo included, is that they often get the fundementals of a story wrong. They'll read a title or a summary and write that up, regardless of the actual content of the article.

I can kind of understand GoNintendo, since their news is typically a small paragraph and a link to the real news. But Kotaku actually writes entire articles like a real news site, and they often get their stuff even more wrong.

This is why I used to have a prejudice against blogs. But then I found some good ones like the one I work at, lol.

[SOUP]

I don't mind Kotaku.
I don't really count on them for editorial, but I find they're an easy way to find out the main videogame headlines of the day. I'll just go to other sites for the more in depth bits.

[Barry the Nomad]

Wrote up a little article on why Kotaku is a poopie head: http://segabits.com/blog/2012/04/04/editorial-gaming-sites-who-failed-at-reporting-last-fridays-news/