Gamesindustry.biz had a interview with Jurgen Post, COO of SEGA Europe. In the interview Jurgen explained to the site how SEGA now operated, how financial reports worked and basically how gaming press write negative (and false) articles about SEGA for clickbait (remember when they left the console market?). They also talked about how Creative Assembly now has over 400 employees working on upcoming titles including the newly announced Halo Wars 2. But what about a sequel to last year’s Alien: Isolation?
“Alien: Isolation 2 is not out of the question, because we’re so proud of it and there’s possibly more to be said. But do we really want to be spending very significant amounts of money, and getting close to break-even or just about in the black? That’s not where Sega wants to be, when we have a brilliant portfolio of other games that do great business.” – Jurgen Post, COO of SEGA Europe.
It seems that Alien: Isolation 2 isn’t out of the question, but they just want to explore other games that they think would do better in sales. Jurgen talked about how he wasn’t happy with how Alien: Isolation sold, stating that it did well in Europe but didn’t do so hot in America. Being from America, I can tell you that SEGA of America can’t market a game to save their own jobs. Check out the full interview for more insight into SEGA of Europe.
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I kinda cant stand this COO. He always completly oblivious that Sega exists outside of Sonic and acquired western studios….
Guess what are those “other games that do great business”, TW, FM and CoH, a real “brilliant portfolio”, LOL.
This shows the total imcompetence of Sega West, they managed to barely break-even with 2 million of copies, 2 million!!!
Im a late bloomer. Im going to buy alien isolation. U gotta admit it looks really next gen s
I think the quote attributed to Jurgen Post in the article above is actually from Tim Heaton, Creative Assembly’s director.
The sad truth is that Sega Europe is doing well because it’s not catering to traditional SEGA fans. If you consider how big of a studio Creative Assemble is now, and that’s not even counting Relic Entertainment, I’m convinced Sega Europe could release PSO2 if they really wanted to. But they’re not, they’re just focusing on something they know will sell. I guess I can’t argue with the results…
What Heaton says about Alien Isolation also seems to reflect what I personally see as a problem with SEGA: they don’t want to invest in new franchises. Bayonetta 1 sells 1 million copies? Not good enough, sequel is canceled and Nintendo has to salvage it. Valkyria Chronicles sales not good enough in the West? Move the sequel to PSP. Alien Isolation sells over 2 million copies? “That’s not where we want to be”. I’m not sure what to think of that.
I kind of hope that Sega of America, what’s left of it, can start to rebuild from the ground up to become more like Atlus. A smaller studio focusing more on localizing games from Sega of Japan.
It sounds like they don’t want to release this sequel Ever…
Sad to think of how much better this may have sold if the Alien game brand name hadn’t been so tainted by Colonial Marines. (A game which was far better-marketed, by the way.)
Not sure what Sega West was thinking.
25 years ago, these numbers would have meant something, now, it’s a pittance.
2million+ sales is peanuts in todays industry, the videogame industry has grown massively since then, and so numbers like that are nothing relevant.
Also didn’t Aliens Isolation end up being a big disappointment, albeit a surprisingly decent 2Million+ seller – which is hardly relevant in todays climate but still decent considering it was pretty bad?
I think it’s safe to say then, it sold well relative to it’s quality based merely on the license name rather than the game itself.