Sega Europe talks frankly about the Sega brand

[Radrappy]

It is bad reasoning. Wither you like it or not, MadWorld, Bayonetta, Vanquish, Infinite Space AND Anarchy Reigns would not be possible under any other mid-tier publisher sans THQ. And the fact is, the first three games in that list were strongly supported.

I still don't get how you're getting to this conclusion.  Platinum games has been finding work just fine without Sega.  Scalebound, Bayonetta 2, and W101 were all seemingly made without hassle or issue and are being marketed just as well as Sega did with Bayonetta or Madworld.  All you're really confirming is that Platinum did indeed make some games under Sega's banner.  I don't see how that makes them a great partner.


If the relationship had been great wouldn't they still be together?

[Aki-at]

I still don't get how you're getting to this conclusion.  Platinum games has been finding work just fine without Sega.  Scalebound, Bayonetta 2, and W101 were all seemingly made without hassle or issue and are being marketed just as well as Sega did with Bayonetta or Madworld.  All you're really confirming is that Platinum did indeed make some games under Sega's banner.  I don't see how that makes them a great partner. 

Platinum under SEGA said they wanted to make their own IPs on their own terms. That saw them produce 5 new IPs.

Platinum has since worked on one returning series, two original IPs, 2 licensed tie in games and 3 IPs belonging to other publishers.

From never needing to find work to help keep the ship afloat to needing to get work to support the rest of the company, there's definitely been a change in direction from their original foundations. They are producing excellent games, however they no longer have the safety net SEGA original provided them.

[Ben]

lt is absolutely wrong at saying SEGA have been ignoring Shenmue and refusing it's developers to talk about it.

Kikizo did their famous big interview with Yu Suzuki and they were more or less forbidden by Sega from publishing anything Shenmue 3-related in it. They even put this notice at the end of the interview because they knew that those reading it would wonder why Shenmue III was never discused:

 

Officially Sega will not talk about a real Shenmue successor under any circumstances. Some stuff we've agreed with Sega can't be published, although there was nothing of massive significance to provide an absolute answer that some fans want - and we're not just being tantalising for the sake of it here, the point is that Sega really, really doesn't like talking about Shenmue at all.

http://archive.videogamesdaily.com/features/sega_yu_suzuki_iv_feb06_p1.asp



 

The series has had references in Virtua Fighter and Sonic Racing

I'm not denying that Ryo was used as way to sell copies of the likes of Sonic All Stars Racing but that's not exactly what I'm talking about. Again, I'm not denying that Sega likes using characters of theirs to sell their games. My argument is that Sega does then not actually reward their fans with games based on their characters.

However it has been extremely trying if someone keeps asking you the same question every single time.

I agree, but had Sega actually answered the question and not let Shenmue III be the big purple elephant in the room for the past decade and a half then maybe they wouldn't have been asked it so much.

The reason is simple, and I'm not sure why you're acting like you don't know it. Shenmue wasn't profitable, in fact it lost the company crazy money...They deemed the risk not worth the potential reward after they got burned so badly before, a pretty wise business choice. Like it or not.

Despite a pretty vocal online presents, in the grand scheme of things even the 70k kick starter backers are not even close to the numbers they need to sell for an AAA game like Shenmue to be profitable and I assume every vocal Shenmue fan put money in, even if it was $5.

A bunch of whiney buttholes on the internet don't actually have better business sense than a 60 year old company.... Shocking, I know.

Where I disagree with you (and I imagine several in this topic) is that I don't think that as Sega fans we should simply be expected to embrace everything the company does. The Nintendo fanbase has for years been guilty of simply accepting Nintendo's bad decisions and making excuses for them, and as a result Nintendo's remained 10 years behind the rest of the industry for generations now. They haven't changed because they didn't feel the need to; their fanbase was not asking that they change.

Sega should have engaged the fanbase and found out a way to make Shenmue III happen. And maybe that doesn't mean an AAA title; maybe that meant a digital-only title for around the cost of $5 million (or whatever the total will be from the Shenmue 3 donors) that delivered a 3rd Shenmue game. Maybe it meant doing a Kickstarter. I mean, I dunno, there are a lot of ways to communicate with a fanbase these days.

Shenmue III is clearly happening, it clearly won't be an AAA title, but as I think we can see, fans don't care. We just wanted the game. We just wanted to continue the story.

There were many ways to approach a Shenmue III and make it happen. Sega chose to ignore all of them and pretend that the series didn't exist (for the most part.) To me that was a mistake and you say it was a wise business decision but looking at the reaction to Shenmue III, I'd say they're missing out.

. And everyone always uses the Dreamcast figure but completely overlooks the fact the game didn't do more than half that on the Xbox which had a bigger userbase (and if you want to argue the game would fail because no one bought the original then you're implying the product would fail irregardless)

The Xbox version arrived nearly a year after Shenmue II on the DC was one of the highest-imported games of all time. So of course with the majority of the fanbase having played it by the time it came out, that certainly hurt its sales.

Not sure that the Xbox had a bigger userbase than 10 million units by 2002 either, by the way. The system was just under 2 years old when the port of Shenmue II released for it. The Xbox version was also not advertised.

[EnternalHope]

It is bad reasoning, I mean I can't comprehension it since it seems over the top without looking at the positives. Wither you like it or not, MadWorld, Bayonetta, Vanquish, Infinite Space AND Anarchy Reigns would not be possible under any other mid-tier publisher sans THQ. And the fact is, the first three games in that list were strongly supported.

The port of Bayonetta wasn't some game crashing glitchfest, let's not try and act like it was a similar disaster to Skyrim, it wasn't a good port either. But you seem to be failing to understand why it wasn't a good port, Platinum built the original Bayonetta ground up with the Xbox 360 in mind, the Playstation 3 was a coding trainwreck that even Sony realises was a massive mistake. Without laying the foundations with the engine, you were going to get a bad job later on.

And let's not act like SEGA didn't and still don't have any pull with third parties. Smaller third parties are looking for work, they don't care who the work comes from, as long as they get it. SEGA won't be able to pull someone like Bungie anymore, but if they wanted to, they'd get the majority of third party developers on their side.

Not even changing goal posts just typing on the phone, but if you want to project me as some sort of rabid SEGA fanboy, by all means go ahead. You seem to overlook the fact I said "You'd be better off suggesting someone like Obsidian..." but honed straight onto the excellent bit because I'm one of those crazies who liked that one video game more than you.

Your speaking the truth.

Keep up the good work. Being frank is the key to supressing complaints of matters not elaborated on.

[Radrappy]

Platinum under SEGA said they wanted to make their own IPs on their own terms. That saw them produce 5 new IPs.

Platinum has since worked on one returning series, two original IPs, 2 licensed tie in games and 3 IPs belonging to other publishers.

From never needing to find work to help keep the ship afloat to needing to get work to support the rest of the company, there's definitely been a change in direction from their original foundations. They are producing excellent games, however they no longer have the safety net SEGA original provided them.

You know what, that's totally true.  I forgot that the whole inception of the original Platinum/Sega deal was complete creative autonomy.  I guess it would have been nice if they had been rewarded with sales. 


Additionally, while the whole deal started very amicably, it's hard not to let the cancellation of B2 at the hands of Sega feel like them being the bad guys yet again. 

[Aki-at]

Kikizo did their famous big interview with Yu Suzuki and they were more or less forbidden by Sega from publishing anything Shenmue 3-related in it. They put this notice at the end of the interview.

 http://archive.videogamesdaily.com/features/sega_yu_suzuki_iv_feb06_p1.asp

Ah I see, well I was talking about Shenmue the brand, then Shenmue 3 itself.

I'm not denying that Ryo was used as way to sell copies of the likes of Sonic All Stars Racing but that's not exactly what I'm talking about. Again, I'm not denying that Sega likes using characters of theirs to sell their games. My argument is that Sega does then not actually reward their fans with games based on their characters.

But they do, the games have to sell. We're being "rewarded" with more Miku and Sonic (And Total War etc) because those products sold.

I agree, but had Sega actually answered the question maybe they wouldn't have been asked it so much.

Very much doubt it would have deterred some. We had SEGA people on Twitter say Shenmue 3 would be hard to develop in today's climate a few years back (Actually me and Bruno got dragged into it by some Shenmue fans)

The Xbox version arrived nearly a year after Shenmue II on the DC was one of the highest-imported games of all time. So of course with the majority of the fanbase having played it by the time it came out, that certainly hurt its sales.

Not sure that the Xbox had a bigger userbase than 10 million units by 2002 either, by the way. The system was just under 2 years old when the port of Shenmue II released for it. The Xbox version was also not advertised.

The Dreamcast's 10 million figure was it's final figure no?

The Xbox managed over 1 million sales in three months in the US;

On November 15, 2001, Xbox launched in North America and quickly sold out. Its launch in that region was successful, selling 1.53 million units three months after launch, which is higher than its successor Xbox 360, as well as the GameCube, PlayStation 3, Wii U, and even the PlayStation 2 and Wii.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/02/wii-u-has-historically-bad-january-sells-about-50000-units-in-us/

I think it's safe to assume it'd have established a decent userbase in the US and Europe, maybe not 10 million but a few million under it. Possibly 6 or 7 million?

Shenmue 2 didn't break a million, so I doubt the import figure was a big number either. I mean, you can say SEGA SHOULD have done better, but after the first failure, than the second failure and further failure in an ill judged online game, there's no way you can justify spending even more R&D on the series. It was a game made to sell consoles and without SEGA needing to sell anymore consoles, it was unfortunately discarded.

[Aki-at]

You know what, that's totally true.  I forgot that the whole inception of the original Platinum/Sega deal was complete creative autonomy.  I guess it would have been nice if they had been rewarded with sales. 

This has been my biggest "disappointment" with what has become of Platinum. It's not such a sad fate though since they've worked on some major IPs, but I'd rather have hoped Activision or Square (Especially since it's Nier 2 they're working on) would have got them working on more original titles so I've got my fingers crossed and hoping Scalebound does well enough to warrant more blank cheques from Microsoft.

[Ben]

Ah I see, well I was talking about Shenmue the brand, then Shenmue 3 itself.

I see.

Well, even the brand, I mean....I wouldn't say that for the most part Sega's been particularly forthcoming over the years about Shenmue, lol. Ryo appearances here or there aside.

But they do, the games have to sell. We're being "rewarded" with more Miku and Sonic (And Total War etc) because those products sold.

But here's the weird thing....Neither Sonic (anymore) nor Yakuza nor Miku are million-sellers.....Shenmue 1 sold more than any Yakuza game in recent memory and probably about evenly/greater than every recent Sonic game too (Beyond the GC/PS2/Xbox era). I mean several Sonic games have bombed over the past few years, I don't see Sega discontinuing the series.


Shenmue II isn't really the best benchmark for the series' success.... You're talking about a sequel whose Western release was entirely butchered/handed off.....Shenmue III happening or not should have been judged by the clear interest in/anticipation for it. And by how passionate Sega fans were about it.

The anticipation for a 3rd Shenmue game among not even just the fanbase but among the industry itself (who became intrigued with the 2nd game's infamous ever-unresolved cliffhanger) was ridiculously high. How is it that the Playstation fanbase was able to make the game happen, lol? If it wasn't a game that people outside of the Sega community were interested in, Sony wouldn't have made it happen. Sega had to have been blind not to see the demand for a Shenmue III.

....maybe they only looked at Japan. (Unlike Yakuza, Shenmue did far better in the West, something which I think sadly plays far more into the series' fate at Sega than anything else.)

I think it's safe to assume it'd have established a decent userbase in the US and Europe, maybe not 10 million but a few million under it. Possibly 6 or 7 million?

Vs a userbase almost entirely made up of Sega fans, which was the case with the Dreamcast. Shenmue by the way wasn't the only Sega IP that failed to sell well on the Xbox. It was a bad system for Japanese-developed games in general. If Sega absolutely had to cancel the Dreamcast version, the PS2 would have been a far better choice.

Shenmue 2 didn't break a million, so I doubt the import figure was a big number either.

Well dude it's kinda hard to tell...I mean, I bought my copy from a website called Videogameimports.com, or something...I don't know how Sega profited from that, or if my sales number was recorded, etc.

I do know that almost everyone I knew who liked Shenmue imported the second one. Hell I let friends borrow my copy. Sega just outright screwed their American fanbase over by releasing it everywhere else and cancelling our version weeks from release....and the reaction (if you remember at the time man) was insanely negative. Well, at least in the US. Might have been different for you guys in the UK since you got the Dreamcast version. But the press and stigma surrounding the Xbox game over here was awful.

 

[Moody]

[SEGA's older IPs are for an OLDER generation. Younger gamers don't remember or care about Streets of Rage,Ecco,Shining Force,Burning Rangers,Crazy Taxi,Jet Set Radio,Zaxxon e.t.c. So without a generation of gamers who would rather see them on a SEGA branded platform since that's what they were released on and ORIGINALLY developed for, it makes logical sense not to revive them if they can't profit from a large userbase.

You underestimate how much younger gamers love retro games nowadays. Is it the VAST majority, hell no, but a good chunk, yes. You think games like Shovel Knight are ONLY being played by 80's and 90's gamers? Nah, they're showing them to their kids, along with other games from their generation. Kids are very easily exposed to retro stuff nowadays because it's so prevalent. You will of course have the brats that don't know shit, but ones raised open mindedly will be more accepting of older games.

Take me, for example. I came into gaming right after the Dreamcast died. I am a youngin compared to a lot of you. I had virtually no connection to SEGA, its franchises, or its legacy for most of my childhood. Outside of a brief period where I played some SEGA Xbox games, I had nothing. And now I, only soon turning an adult, am on a SEGA forum arguing about the company's future. Partly because of their newer output, but mostly because I went back and played their legacy.

SEGA aren't a giant with money to spare anymore, but they aren't a weak piglet either. I agree it's stupid that they leave the majority of their backlog dormant, but I also realize that reviving even one of them with all the glam and glitz the fanbase wants would be a massive risk that might not pay off.

What do they mean with "legacy titles" exactly?

Like are they talking about cult games in a vein to Jet Set Radio, Skies of Arcadia, and so on? Something specific would help clarify.

I'm assuming they just mean their older games in general. You know, pre-Xbox 360 and back.

[Phantasos]

Firstly Bayonetta on PS3 was only possible because SEGA was willing to make a port.

That's exactly it. Everything revolving around Bayonetta's PS3 port is solely connected to Sega. They made the sound decision of making it multiplatform since pure action games are a niche genre to begin with and as an original IP, Bayonetta needed as much leeway as it could. And considering the attach rate of the PS3 was actually higher than the original version, they made the right call there.

By that I mean they would have, if not for the complete fucking technical disaster that it is. And I'm not saying this because it was so bad Kamiya outright refused to even acknowledge its existence during the game's marketing campaign as he later said it made his own game look bad, I'm saying this that after randomly trying the PS3 version after more than 200 hours of play time with the 360 version, I can honestly attest that it's a sub30fps, screen tearing, color saturated, loading infested piece of shit. It was so fucking bad at first that they released a patch to remove the loading time you'd get when you pressed start to access the menu. A loading screen to access a menu. I have literally never heard of anything like that. Now, I never played Skyrim and I don't care how botched that thing was but Bayonetta on the PS3 is a fucking disservice to the game. It was so bad that PG personally vowed to handle every port of any game they would ever work on.

Platinum had neither the manpower nor interest in making a PS3 version. And let's not act like trying to port a game that was built for the 360 in mind was an easy job either.

Come on, the BUT IT'S HARD TO PORT 360 GAMES, MAN excuse is crap. We're talking about professionals here, they fucked up, pure and simple. When Platinum Games ported the game themselves for the WiiU, not only it was indistinguishable from the original 360 version, they actually managed to remove what little screen tearing it had.

Don't excuse shitty products. That's just saying it's okay for them not to give a shit. That port is just inexcusable.

Second which other publisher has done a good job marketing Platinum stuff? Certainly not Nintendo or Activision and Konami only lasted for one deal. So far out of everyone they've worked with, SEGA been the best, no debate on that.

Konami was by far the best. Microsoft is already doing a better job. Nintendo did a decent job and they cooked up a pretty awesome collector's edition of Bayonetta 2, although Wonderful 101 had 0 marketing.. Activision did it just enough to greenlight a completely new game from a completely different IP with a bigger budget. I wouldn't say Sega was mediocre since Bayonetta got a pretty good marketing campaign but then again no other Publisher pulled an Anarchy Reigns. Although then again Anarchy Reigns is kinda mediocre so that one was doomed to fail anyway, Sega even released it at a budget price, if I'm remembering right.

To me, the biggest different between all the collaborations PG had so far is that Sega was the one who had the biggest contract out of them all. They asked for more games. That doesn't necessarily mean they were the better partners. And by that I don't mean they were bad as a whole or anything like that, their biggest blunder there was the PS3 port but they made some amazing games happen. Too bad they just ditched all of it even if most of them sold over 1 million despite being new IPS. They just didn't knew what they had there. And now PG is literally being approach by EVERYONE to make games purely on the merit of the quality of their games, not on how much money they make because they do not make AAA money and probably never will. Square Enix picked them, Kojima personally picked them. Fucking Activision picked them. Nintendo accepted Bayonetta 2's proposal and now hired them for Starfox even after Bayonetta 2 didn't do so hot and Wonderful 101 bombed miserably. And Microsoft said yes to Scalebound without hesitation. They add brand value because their games are that good.

And this cynicism over them working on pre-existing series is fucking hilarious. Like Platinum Games making a Nier sequel is somehow not as creative as doing a new IP or doing a Transformers game based on the old school 80s cartoon isn't fucking amazing or doing a Metal Gear Spin off that's a completely different beast from a mainline Metal Gear game isn't sweet. Give me a fucking break. You want to talk about bland, soulless production-line sequels, go play Assassin's Creed or Call of Duty or some shit.
 
And when Sega and Platinum Games were doing their thing, that was the first and only time in a long time I've ever seen Sega being discussed so often and so much in a positive light. People were actually giving a shit about them again. Hell, I was. But then it was back to square 1 shortly.

But hey, there's a chance they'll port Bayonetta or Vanquish to PC. I'd buy the fuck out of Vanquish, that's for sure.

The fanbase has gotten extreme and overzealous with its furries and manchild retards, that's why Sonic Boom was created and why SEGA of Japan is now in full charge of the main Sonic series. The inconsistencies are due to the fact that the Sonic fanbase is now an unoriganized,double minded,schizophrenic mess.

That's a shitty excuse for shitty games. Plenty of game series out there are oozing out toxic, disgusting fanbases and that's not keeping them from having great games. Sega's insistence on trying to reinvent the wheel with fucking Sonic of all things is what made the series shit. This fanbase boogeyman argument is as deep as a puddle and just as interesting. Sonic 06 isn't a shit game because of furries, Sonic 06 is a shit game because Sega made a shit game. Simple as that.

And NO, there's zero value in niche if the budget is extremely high.

And yet, Platinum Games still keeps getting job offers after job offers after job offers. And why Bayonetta 2 exists even after the first one "bombed" by selling over 1 million copies as a new IP.

Clearly you're walking the walk. And Sega clearly knows what it's doing. Just look at Yakuza 5. A digital only release of a 3 year old game in a last gen console that's all but forgotten at this point with practically no marketing whatsoever that ONLY happened because Sony fucking payed for it.

I just can't wait when Sega or Sega apologists blames the fanbase when that one sells like shit. That's gonna be fun.

[Radrappy]

all that justice

[EnternalHope]

You underestimate how much younger gamers love retro games nowadays. Is it the VAST majority, hell no, but a good chunk, yes. You think games like Shovel Knight are ONLY being played by 80's and 90's gamers? Nah, they're showing them to their kids, along with other games from their generation. Kids are very easily exposed to retro stuff nowadays because it's so prevalent. You will of course have the brats that don't know shit, but ones raised open mindedly will be more accepting of older games.

Take me, for example. I came into gaming right after the Dreamcast died. I am a youngin compared to a lot of you. I had virtually no connection to SEGA, its franchises, or its legacy for most of my childhood. Outside of a brief period where I played some SEGA Xbox games, I had nothing. And now I, only soon turning an adult, am on a SEGA forum arguing about the company's future. Partly because of their newer output, but mostly because I went back and played their legacy.

SEGA aren't a giant with money to spare anymore, but they aren't a weak piglet either. I agree it's stupid that they leave the majority of their backlog dormant, but I also realize that reviving even one of them with all the glam and glitz the fanbase wants would be a massive risk that might not pay off.

I'm assuming they just mean their older games in general. You know, pre-Xbox 360 and back.

SEGA could only afford the risk of reviving their old IPs if they had their own dedicated platform to sell them on.(Because those titles again were made and developed for Sega systems) And while I applaud younger people like you for going and playing some of SEGA's old titles, its not a huge majority of millenials. They've grown up seeing SEGA as a struggling publisher and pretty much disregard everything before 2002.




For me, and for many veterans, its not just the Sega branded games. It's the hardware they were on too. There's just something about a SEGA branded product you can't get on other systems. An emotion or passion that's nowhere to be found on Playstation. Like the brand was VERY deeply involved in making a superb product and was TRULY passionate about game design in general. SEGA consoles had HEART & SOUL. Since then, they've been unable to find an actual identity  This is basically what Haijime Satomi alluded to in Famistu about SEGA being left with nothing but a "reputation". The good news is that SEGA has ALOT of money to spend over $11 billion in actual cash flow.


http://www.morningstar.com/stocks/PINX/SGAMY/quote.html


Other than that, amazing points.   They ARE NOT a weak piglet that can be sold off in a heartbeat or will just blindly sell off their IPs. Like Nintendo and Sony fanboys believe and falsely think.

This has been my biggest "disappointment" with what has become of Platinum. It's not such a sad fate though since they've worked on some major IPs, but I'd rather have hoped Activision or Square (Especially since it's Nier 2 they're working on) would have got them working on more original titles so I've got my fingers crossed and hoping Scalebound does well enough to warrant more blank cheques from Microsoft.

We live in an era where game design is not rewarded in the western market. It's all about hype and word-of-mouth. That's what sells games in the West and in Europe. Not great games. No, those are overlooked for lame, Tactical first person shooters and stupid,open world shovelware garbage like Destiny, all because they're marketed aggressively.

[Moody]

SEGA could only afford the risk of reviving their old IPs if they had their own dedicated platform to sell them on.(Because those titles again were made and developed for Sega systems) And while I applaud younger people like you for going and playing some of SEGA's old titles, its not a huge majority of millenials. They've grown up seeing SEGA as a struggling publisher and pretty much disregard everything before 2002.

For me, and for many veterans, its not just the Sega branded games. It's the hardware they were on too. There's just something about a SEGA branded product you can't get on other systems. An emotion or passion that's nowhere to be found on Playstation. Like the brand was VERY deeply involved in making a superb product and was TRULY passionate about game design in general. SEGA consoles had HEART & SOUL. Since then, they've been unable to find an actual identity  This is basically what Haijime Satomi alluded to in Famistu about SEGA being left with nothing but a "reputation". The good news is that SEGA has ALOT of money to spend over $11 billion in actual cash flow.

Why though? Why must SEGA games only be on SEGA systems to matter? You're telling me that none of their storied franchises has a chance on other consoles because...why? I don't quite understand the reasoning behind this, if anything that just sounds like fanboy speak. If anything, Shenmue 3 blowing up as much as it did being announced by Sony and with no involvement from SEGA shows their franchises can totally make do on other platforms.

And what of the SEGA games that came out right after the Dreamcast died? The likes of Shinobi PS2, Jet Set Radio Future, Panzer Dragoon Orta. Sure, they didn't sell amazingly, but they did alright for themselves. Not to mention recent re-releases which, again, while not doing amazingly, prove that there can be a market for these games off SEGA's hardware.

The problem is, SEGA does nothing to market. They just throw games out there and hope they do well. It's not that the games don't work off their hardware, it's that they don't tell people the games exist. The few times they have tried to bring back classics to new platforms way after the Dreamcast's death were plagued by weird design choices that were misguided at best (Altered Beast for PS2, Golden Axe: Beast Rider, and NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams come to mind).

It really makes no sense to think that their franchises simply can't exist because they're not on the hardware lineage they were born on. What they need is new blood with fresh ideas, and a team that can actually make people aware of the product.

[Barry the Nomad]

A good game is a good game, no matter the console. I loved playing the latest titles on the Genesis, Saturn, and Dreamcast – but following SEGA's shift to third party, no magic was lost on the good games. JSRF, VF4, Orta, Generations, Valkyria Chronicles, the Yakuza series, Super Monkey Ball, and many more games are just as great as any of the experiences I had on SEGA hardware. Even re-releases like Sonic Adventure 2, Sonic 1&2 Remastered, NiGHTS HD and JSR HD retained every bit of what made me love them in the first place.

As mentioned, marketing is where SEGA seriously needs to step things up. They simply cannot and should not (but sadly, likely will again in the near future) announce a game a week before it is quietly released to digital services. They need to properly reveal it, build up to release, get fansites and YouTubers involved, preview and speak to gaming journalists, and make the release a proper event.

[EnternalHope]

Why though? Why must SEGA games only be on SEGA systems to matter? You're telling me that none of their storied franchises has a chance on other consoles because...why? I don't quite understand the reasoning behind this, if anything that just sounds like fanboy speak. If anything, Shenmue 3 blowing up as much as it did being announced by Sony and with no involvement from SEGA shows their franchises can totally make do on other platforms.

And what of the SEGA games that came out right after the Dreamcast died? The likes of Shinobi PS2, Jet Set Radio Future, Panzer Dragoon Orta. Sure, they didn't sell amazingly, but they did alright for themselves. Not to mention recent re-releases which, again, while not doing amazingly, prove that there can be a market for these games off SEGA's hardware.

The problem is, SEGA does nothing to market. They just throw games out there and hope they do well. It's not that the games don't work off their hardware, it's that they don't tell people the games exist. The few times they have tried to bring back classics to new platforms way after the Dreamcast's death were plagued by weird design choices that were misguided at best (Altered Beast for PS2, Golden Axe: Beast Rider, and NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams come to mind).

It really makes no sense to think that their franchises simply can't exist because they're not on the hardware lineage they were born on. What they need is new blood with fresh ideas, and a team that can actually make people aware of the product.

I seem to remember a little Wii killer app called Nights Journey into Dreams.

I seem to recall it being marketed aggressively, but failing to sell adequately.

Remember 2012's Transformed? Remember the Progressive Auto tie in, and NASCAR promo?

Still didn't sell.

You can't use the "they need to market more aggressively " because they've already tried that. People DO know about SEGA titles and know they're out there. They just don't have any interest in them because they think that they're a mediocre quality publisher. They been thinking that way since 2005.

Regarding Shenmue 3's KS, you didn't post the numbers. It raised only $6.3 million & had only 69,000 backers, outside of a fan crowdfunder, that's not very impressive. Its a vocal minority.




Regarding your question, SEGA has something Sony doesn't: A unique,ingenuity in hardware design and much better IPs. Why don't you sit down and play Saturn to see what I'm talking about.


I want SEGA to succeed at EVERYTHING they do. They've never really had alot of success and they so badly deserve it. They've overcome FAR too much for fans to justify dismiss them as a mediocre publisher and brush off everything else they're capable of.


SEGA needs to GROW and EXPAND as a company. And you don't want them to? I don't understand why.

Console game publishing doesn't really make very much revenue. Why should SEGA stay stagnated? Why should they just stay they way they are forever?This is why all of SEGA's brands outside of game publishing are doing well.


And regarding game journalism. It's a joke now in days. SEGA should pay them no mind. Isn't this the same market that BASHED and smeared Sonic Unleashed with bias,erroneous criticism and slander just because of the Werehog levels?