Another sad day in SEGA land folks, SEGA has announced today that they will be closing their European and Australian offices. Koch Media will be the distribution partner for the European territories, except for Benelux, which will be handled by Level03 Distribution. Australia territory will be handled by 5 Star. SEGA UK will remain open as the European HQ. So it isn’t all that bad.
“SEGA is entering a new and exciting phase that will position the company as a content led organisation maximising sales with strong and balanced IP such as Sonic the Hedgehog, Total War, Football Manager and the Aliens franchise. The company will benefit from a clear focus and realigned strategy for our digital business and packaged goods and we are confident that this will lead to a successful future.” – COO of Sega Europe Jurgen Post
This goes with the rumor they sort of predicted during E3, only that the rumor wasn’t 100% right. Actually still think the guy just guessed and happen to hit some of the mark. What do you guys think? Is this ‘new and exciting phase’ for SEGA or is this bad?
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I’ve said the phrase “This is the darkest day in Sega history” so many times the words have lost all meaning… 🙁
I gotta say, I understand this reasoning. With the fewer disc titles releasing nowadays, there is less of a reason for multiple offices to remain open in Europe for such a small amount of titles. With digital, it’s very easy to operate from one location sending out newsblasts, emails, trailers, etc. I think it’s just a sign of technology advancing.
I hope I’m not being unfair but I feel Sega as a whole brought this on itself, to be honest. The games from the past few months seem to have been barely promoted, with Binary Domain being the negative highlight. I wish all the best to those who lost their jobs.
I think this is a great opportunity for Sega to refocus.
Arcade-like games have ALWAYS been Sega’s strongest point, and the digital market is bursting with potential for this kind of games.
Leave the big titles to Japan and bring them to the West, but focus the West on making quality arcade titles.
At least that is what I would hope for.
I agree with Barry. The games that Sega released digitally have been successful a couple of months. Sega just needs to amp their promotions on their latest games and putting them on the right console.
This works for PSO2 since it’s being made into a digital work on the PC. But the consoles which I prefer over PC is yet still unknown. So we will see a English version of PSO2 in the coming of months/years. The best time to announce it will be in September, when PSU closes. So they have the PSU players attention for PSO2.
Everything i have being saying to my friends are starting to take effect , this is not the end of sega , far from it , they are moving with the times , theres nothing wrong from working on your key franchises but they digital market is proving to be successful for them , agreeing with barry post this will lead sega to a more strong foothold in the business. They successfully posted vf5 showdown selling 300k in two weeks , thats outstanding . Theres a much better market digitally these days for japan and handhelds aswell than trying to get to the west which at this stage market is big budget blockbuster titles , shooters are todays market and very hard for many japanesse companies to get a foot in so yes its sad to see people lose jobs but not the doom of sega brand
Couldn’t have said it better myself Richard! Like I said. I’m optimistic that Sega will do okay. Now if only they could confirm a solid release date for Anarchy Reigns….
Hi. I’m new here but I want to add my two cent’s about this whole situation. The fact that this is happening to Sega of all publishers is just sad. Hopefully this will be the end of there problems. After all they have been through MUCH worse situations before. (Sega Dreamcast anyone?) Don’t get me wrong I adore the Dreamcast as much as anyone else here on this site.
lost jobs. how many people got sacked? how much money is sega freeing up to sink into their casino business? these are questions we should be asking ourselves. I know we all have an appreciation for special IPs this company’s produced over the years, but any downsizing should be scrutinized to the fullest because a lot of people just lost their jobs. what kind of severance pay do they get? will sega give them some support while they search for a new job? are the workers being treated fairly? remember, these aren’t just “offices” shutting down like in the title of this post. people lost their jobs.
To me it reads as if SEGA are trying to recoup costs by cutting those on the job role.
I mean it’s sad for those people to lose their jobs but due to the “refocusing on Digital titles on existing platforms”, they have solved a massive saving by trimming off the fat of their European Branches in one fell swoop.
I am hoping now that SEGA make a profit if they can focus on actually promoting their games rather then sending them out to die, which means making a loss.
SEGA, just hire some marketing people for Europe instead of Distribution. The UK HQ can probably handle the vast localisation process, but you NEED a marketing team to promote games!
According to the press release of Koch Media they take over the distribution and marketing of SEGA’s retail products in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Spain and France.
This is almost as sad as the day SEGA announced it will retire from hardware development! The Ancient Beast called SEGA is slowly fading.. The hope for another console, for Shenmue III and for good old SEGA magic seems more like a Dream.. Everything else on this issue is just marketing analysis and blah blah blah.. Unfortunately 🙁
Marketing is always SEGA’s biggest weakness, I don’t care how people (including Sega themselves) try to disguise this as something that’s good for SEGA, because it is not, SEGA have fallen and fallen and fallen, look how far they have come, they’ve went from being one of the biggest, if not THE biggest gaming company to the brink of near oblivion, bankruptcy and having to sell out it’s own studios and sub divisions in the space of just two short hardware generations, 1992 seems to be the last time SEGA ever was as big as it was, I know you should never say ‘Never’, but being realistic here, Sega will probably never ever get as big or great as it once was will it? I wish it could though, but they just seem so attached with inevitable failure and have been for an extended period of time, that the words ‘failure’ and ‘Sega’ feel synonymous now, as you just know Sega’s gonna bugger it all up at some point, because even in the rare instance it’s had a bit of success, like 2005/6, it just doesn’t really ever last, it went near the complete opposite the year after that and had went steadily downhill again since.
SEGA France’s office has closed too. Sad because these guys made my childhood with memorable advertising and cult slogans like “SEGA Is Stronger Than You” that everybody knew in early 90s.
Everyone knows sega Europe hq is in uk. So at least the main Europe office is safe. I love sega I hope they can make it through this rough patch and get back on top form, kicking ass!
Eight years later and it’s still here in Brentford at 27 Great West Road, it still has Sonic’s classic profile on the side also, it’s still like it is the 90s.