You can't plan for things that are unforeseen. There wasn't any hint of EA buying up Pandemic, just like there wasn't any hint that EA and the NFL would do any exclusive deal . SEGA and Pandemic done a nice deal to make a nice war game and sadly EA spoilt all that, but these things happen.
Never said it wasn't..but things went wrong during several eras of Sega...but they had a strong business plan that could counter and survive it. Jeffery's plan wasn't strong enough and it wasn't a good one. Sega Europe had plenty of things going wrong like the closure of the racing studio but they still had made good decisions and a better business plan under Hayes to weather it.
SOA idea was far better , Having all the GBA Sonic games remade with 3D polygons graphics (sort like Ghost N Goblins for the PSP). I think that's how Blackdone even won the contract to develop the game was by remaking part of the GBA Sonic game with polygons graphics .
Maybe.
Sigh... Iizuki-san is the main man with NiGHTS and Sonic (32Bit days and on) It was meant to be 360 (it was the lead platform) and there was even a demo build of the game. Sadly SEGA Japan mistakenly thought NiGHTS was a kids game and thought it be better on the Wii. And No, sorry SEGA Japan does put their some of their mascot or liked characters on other systems that are not seen as Kids like Toe Jam and Earl on the XBox, Super Monkeyball on XBox and PS2 or even VF Quest on the PS2.
By the time NIGHTS came around they were. Talkiing about the Ps2 and Xbox era when Sega was finding its feet as a third party hardly proves you're point. By the 360 era..Sega was releasing those type of games soley on Nintendo platforms... so there was no way in logic that Sonic Team failure san could have thought that NIGHTS was going to be a 360 game. So let's not buy into the fantasy.
Nagoshi-San and the Japanese wanted the swearing in, The English dub that was something that SEGA couldn't do nothing about sadly as SONY America at the time were of the thinking that American's didn't like reading subs when playing games.
And i agreeded they went OVER THE TOP..which you yourself said they did. Also YAKUZA could easily include swearing considering the genre its based on. Yet that hasn't really happened. So i can't see Nagoshi really wanted swearing in the game when he could easily include it in his titles..Japan does not have an aversion to swearwords or other things in their games.
Anyway, it's not like it's just SEGA America or Japan that have made plenty of mess up's or still do . The amount of mess ups SEGA Europe made with the DC is almost with-out equal and really painful to list, but some of the real stand out beauties are: Spending over half the £100 Million PR budget on sponsoring loads of Football teams, while not making sure to have AAA football game to call it own, Thinking it was better to advertise Soul Calibur on national (the best looking game on any Platform at the time) by showing someone sending a e-mail through the DC WTF ?, Thinking it be better to launch Virtual Tennis during the New York Open rather than during Wimbledon, buying no Clinch only to close the studio after one game -same goes for the Rally Studio set up under huge expense The VIRTUA TENNIS was a mssing point for sure. But that of course was when everyone in Sega was messing up during the DC era..and plenty of the titles could have easily sold if they matched the campaign right. Marvel Vs Capcom is a great example...if Sega marketed that title with Capcom and used Stan Lee to appear in the advert..it really could have stood out.
