Sharky's corner of negativity: "SEGA of America f***ing sucks"

[Sharky]

Straight up sucks the big one.

Once SEGA of America were a valuable asset to the company, I’ll give them that! But that was a long, long time ago and today they are the worst arm of SEGA. I’m sick of their shit. If SEGA was a person, SoA would be the diseased limb slowly festering, compromising the health of the entire company.

Over the past decade SEGA of America have been responsible for most giant fuck ups the company has made. The Matrix Online? Anyone remember the countdown site SoA launched and the comments they made saying everybody was going to love it? Only to reveal it was an MMORPG for a franchise nobody even gave a shit about any more?

Then there was Golden Axe: Beast Riders, BY MY BALLS what a piece of shit. Way to take a beloved classic, completely misunderstand what made it a beloved classic and create an absolute turd. No multiplayer even... What the....?

Now I’m not entirely sure but I believe we can hold SoA at least partly responsible for Shadow the Hedgehog? It certainly seems like their handy work.

Que that slimy prick Simon Jeffrey and his deal to make Marvel film tie ins... Que years of some of the shittiest games SEGA has ever produced. That fucking Ironman 2 game was the reason I stopped working on SEGANerds.

Next we have Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Episode 1... Just in case they hadn’t shit on your childhood with Beast Riders or quite ruined SEGAs overall image enough! Back at it, taking a beloved classic and really royally fucking it. SEGA of Americas idea of honouring a classic is making a game so cheap and shitty it felt like I could have been playing it on New Grounds.... In 2008.

Phantasy Star Online 2.... WHERE THE FUCK IS IT?!

And now Sonic Boom, the relaunch literally nobody asked for.... It’s not even a Sonic game, it might as well be fucking Garfield and Friends for as much as it has to do with Sonic. It doesn’t play like a Sonic game, It doesn’t look like a Sonic game, the characters are stupid looking... Even long term Sonic fanboys that’ll eat up any old shit are feeling alienated. But perhaps all that could be overlooked if they had just created a good game... But no- don’t be silly. Even if it wasn’t a buggy, poorly designed mess... It’s just bland.


In conclusion, fuck those guys...

[Radrappy]

Right there with you dude.  SoA sucks ginormous cock. 

[Trippled]

Interview from 2008:

My interpretation of Sega of America right now is that it's becoming something of a different company from Sega of Japan. I don't know if that's accurate, but if it is, how did this semi-autonomy come about?

Simon Jeffery: It was by design, very much so. I think we've strongly tried to make Sega of America feel like it's not a Japanese company. We want to resonate better with gamers in the casual market than I think Japanese companies have traditionally been able to do in the west for a few years.

The output from Japan (in general) right now seems to be geared around a small number of huge games which really resonate with the western market, but most Japanese content just does not anymore. So that's a pretty big change from five or six years ago, and it's a big change from last generation.

We're trying to make sure we don't make the mistake of being another Japanese company trying to be another Japanese company in the west. We want to build our success through building products for the west in the west, so there are not many Japanese staff in our office at Sega of America. We have a lot of autonomy now, and it's absolutely by design.

Screw Simon Jeffery.

To be fair PSO2 and Sonic 4 isn't SoA's fault.

[Sharky]

Are you sure Sonic 4 isnt SoAs fault? It seemed very much at the time that SoA were behind the project.

[Aki-at]

Are you sure Sonic 4 isnt SoAs fault? It seemed very much at the time that SoA were behind the project.

All SEGA America wanted was a 2D Sonic game to be called Sonic the Hedgehog 4. Sonic Team is responsible for that shambles.

[Sharky]

Shit how could I have forgotten Aliens: Colonial Marines?


And I also forgot to mention Secret Level, SoA bought them for fuck knows how much. Because they were good? No because they were located in the same city... They developed what, one game? Beast Riders- A total piece of shit... and then disbanded.

[ROJM]

So were have resorted to this now...Actually Jeffery may have had major screw ups but he also did several important things for Sega. One of them being helping Sega restore its power as a third party and getting them back into the top ten publishers in the west..Before then despite the stellar early games from Sega third party Sega was outside the top twenty.

ACM was Hayes fault as well as Jeffery.

Jeffery helped bring in PG.

Then there's CONDEMNED, UNIVERSE AT WAR and some other hidden gems. His problem was that he kept giving contracts to his friends like SHINY Entertainment who made GOLDEN COMPASS, GBX and Obsidian and several others and it back fired on him. Also it didn't help that one of the companies ended up getting sued over an engine.
The most important thing is that SOA has no real autonomy like they did back in the golden days. SOJ was calling the shots and Jeffery was taking their directives over how to crack the western market for them. So we can hate Jeffery and SOA all we want but its misguided since its basically SOJ run.

[ROJM]

Now let's list the mistakes that Jeffery made...

Unlike SOE he didn't make wise investments...
Secret Level was the perfect example. Wasted 30 million on a studio that didn't last very long. If he had waited he could have gotten Midway when they were up for sale..

Too many contracts for lots of games that ended up in development hell and canned and sacked...
This was the real reason he ended up resigning because the money that Sammy gave to the subsidiaries was a lot and he rewarded it on companies that obviously didn't or weren't able to deliver on time..including Silicon Knights, Gearbox and Edge of Reality.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=th_dd_0hhzs

CYPHER COMPLEX one of many games from SOA that got canned during Jeffery's reign of SOA.

Shitty Sonic spin offs...western interpratation
NIGHTS 2 was part of many games SOA was charged to remake for western appeal along with GOLDEN AXE and several others. The result was SONIC RIVALS SUPER MONKEY BALL ADVENTURES and other terrible iterations. Sonic Team took NIGHTS 2 themselves under their usa division..and screwed it up.

Also what happened with VECTOR MAN 3 for PS2 was also a major f up...

Not maintaing games that did work or fucking up a games chances
UNIVERSE AT WAR was a big screw up..a potential franchise that Sega of America messed up by insisting that a console version was needed and the rest was history. FULL AUTO was a classic example of not striking when the iron was hot...first by creating an PS3 only exclusive sequel which denied 360 fans as FULL AUTO was one of the early 360 games that people seemed to like and then bypassing a third game...which led to the creators folding up shop.

Sega.com
Not restructuring the website or linking it to their american arcade division or Gameworks division(one of the things Segasammy did when it was formed was gain full control of that amusement chain) This was something Kalinske and the old SOA would never let pas up as it was a golden opportunity to promote games...IE VIRTUA FIGHTER 5 when that came out could have easily been used to promote the game and tie in their arcade part by holding tourneys or whatever at gameworks centers where fans could have attended and tried out the game..

Not promoting the good games and promoting the crap games..
Marvel is the best example. The Marvel DS games were all brilliant..especially THOR..yet they focused on the titles that weren't that good on console. Picking rubbish developers to make the game in the first place..even though in the case of SL they didn't have the time to really tune that game because Marvel wanted the game out at a certain time. Even ALIENS had that problem..ALIENS INFESTATION was one of the better titles that Sega hardly promoted. This trend continued with SHINOBI 3DS way after Jeffery left..


YAKUZA
The localization of that game more than likely confirmed Nagoshi's fears about SOA not getting it..especially when Nagoshi was meant to reveal the game at E3 and not japan as was originally intended. But he didn't like the way the promotional staff was going to promote the game. Once the game got localized with plenty of good strong actors..it was a horrid dubbed mess. Swear words where none had been before and other nonsense..did more damage to YAKUZA's chances in the west .


After Jeffery...

The ECCO debacle
When two of the best creators from SOA past wanted to do an ECCO game you don't say no from the get go...this was another example of how SOA had fallen..just like the infamous.."what's STREETS OF RAGE" incident during the DC era. No appreciation of what went on before..and no clue has hindered SOA progress in modern times compared to SOE...

TOE JAM AND EARL
Another debacle....the guys approached Sega over a DS game which Sega refused to support...then when SONIC AND ALL STARS RACING came out and fans wanted to see TJ AND EARL in the game...SOA manged to screw that up as well.


The failure to bring SOJ games that could have worked in the west...
During the mid noughties Sega hit pay dirt in the pokomon rip off gravy train with the arcade game MUSHI KING and its GBA and NDS rpg game MUSHI KING. But they also had another game that was just as popular..LOVE AND BERRY. Now while MUSHI KING probably wouldn't have translated well in the western american market..LOVE AND BERRY could have especially with all the girl games that was coming out in the west during that time. SOA totally missed the boat on it..no thanks to SOJ. They also failed to exploit the popularity of BUKAGAN over here by not only bypassing the games rights to Activision who made decent money out of it..but the fact that Sega effectivly made the anime with TMS which was owned by Sega as well. Again Kalinske would never have made such a F up. This was also during Jeffery's reign oddly enough..

[TruthEnigma]

I've been less than convinced of SoA for years now. It wasn't SOJ that released the Saturn months before it was ready, alienating customers, stores, developers and publishers in the process. SoJ wasn't the one that sold the rights to the Master System to Tonka for the US. Also everything Bernie Stolar ever did.

[ROJM]

I've been less than convinced of SoA for years now. It wasn't SOJ that released the Saturn months before it was ready, alienating customers, stores, developers and publishers in the process. SoJ wasn't the one that sold the rights to the Master System to Tonka for the US. Also everything Bernie Stolar ever did.

The Saturn situation was more complex than that to blame SOA for that. Tonka was down to the fact that they had a bigger distribution arm than Sega at that time had..so it made business sense..but it also didn't help that Nintendo had tied most of the third parties to an exclusive contract..so again you can't use that to attack SOA..Tonka was pretty big at that period and no one figured they would screw things up on the Master System...unlike Virgin Mastertronic who didn't in UK and Europe..

[Trippled]

I just think it's totally stupid to have basicilly 3 different companies, and think that the way Bandai Namco and Atlus were run is compeltly wrong. The japanese identidy should be embraced, not dismissed.

[TruthEnigma]

Fair enough on the Master System, Nintendo's monopolistic tactics were a big part of that.

On the Saturn, it was at a major disadvantage from moment one due to the fact that the sudden reveal of the release of the Saturn months early meant that the games were far short of the level they should have been so the publishers had the choice of either missing the entire launch completely or release a bugged game. Also the retailers were not ready for the machine either. This was a very poor idea. It's not the only bad idea, but it was one of the big ones.

Bernie Stolar was a moron. "the Saturn is not our future". That was an idiotic thing to say in public. He was also responsible for some idiotic choices in terms of the list of great games that we didn't see outside of Japan. Working Designs left Sony because of stupid policies he had when there, and when he came to Sega with the same policies, they fled the Saturn, returning to Sony. Everything this guy did was bad.

[ROJM]

Fair enough on the Master System, Nintendo's monopolistic tactics were a big part of that.

On the Saturn, it was at a major disadvantage from moment one due to the fact that the sudden reveal of the release of the Saturn months early meant that the games were far short of the level they should have been so the publishers had the choice of either missing the entire launch completely or release a bugged game. Also the retailers were not ready for the machine either. This was a very poor idea. It's not the only bad idea, but it was one of the big ones.

Bernie Stolar was a moron. "the Saturn is not our future". That was an idiotic thing to say in public. He was also responsible for some idiotic choices in terms of the list of great games that we didn't see outside of Japan. Working Designs left Sony because of stupid policies he had when there, and when he came to Sega with the same policies, they fled the Saturn, returning to Sony. Everything this guy did was bad.

Again that was Kalinske reacting to Sony's move...and he realised how and that they meant business. SOJ is mainly to blame for the saturn and 32x debacle because they didn't plan properly and severly handicapped their divisons in getting ready for that system.Releasing it early or releasing it at its supposed date would not have made a difference..SOJ didn't have any key games of intrest to bring in the american consumer and made no attempt to bring in the fanbase they had built in the west to move onto their new system. Mis mangement 101..and it wasn't SOA or kalinke's fault.
Stolar of course was another thing entirely....you are correct about that one..

[Barry the Nomad]

Sharky, I know you're a mod and all, but can you not make topics with titles like that?

Anyway, retitled the topic as this does appear on the front page as a new topic.

[ROJM]

Sharky, I know you're a mod and all, but can you not make topics with titles like that?

Anyway, retitled the topic as this does appear on the front page as a new topic.

I guess SOA and SONIC BOOM was a step too far for Sharky...No harm in it didn't offend me...understand Shark's frustration..