GameDaily.Biz had a big interview with people from SEGA Europe including Anna Downing, Vice President of Marketing and John Clark, Executive Vice President.
One of the big questions asked to John Clark was the big focus this year on streaming services from publishers. If you didn’t know, SEGA used to be in the forefront of the ‘Netflix style’ streaming service way back in the early 90s with the launch of SEGA Channel.
“From our point of view, we work with partners, and we’re not considering our own platform or our own subscription service, at this stage we don’t know really what subscription means for the gaming audience. We’ve talked to all the partners that you mentioned. We are part of the plans for Game Pass. And that’ll give us a lot of knowledge. We’ve announced Football Manager as part of that. When it launches, we’ll be able to understand how the gaming subscription audience interacts with the title and if subscription is a viable way forward for the games industry. We prefer, at this stage, to be working with channel partners who are investing their time and money to try and understand the audience what the audience wants.” – John Clark, SEGA Europe Excutive Vice President.
What are your thoughts on SEGA Europe focusing more on partnering up with existing services like Game Pass instead of launching their own service like EA, Ubisoft?
Ad:Related posts:
Swingin’ Report Show #52: Lost in a Mega Drive World
New Sonic the Hedgehog game due in 2015 for Xbox One, Playstation 4, and Wii U
[UPDATE] Sonic Forces tag team mode gameplay footage released, Japanese release date revealed
Valkyria Chronicles 4 gets positive review from Famitsu
SEGA Genesis Classics releases today for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One – Check out the crazy launch trailer
I think it would be better if Sega started their own platform again to be honest, if EA can manage it with Origin and Valve with Steam, Sega should easily be able to.
It seems this is more a move to save resources than invest but I think Sega does it best when they are independent and work on their own, you can see what happens when they outsource their own hardware licences to companies like AtGames, their software like Shenmue III to Deep Silver, and Pander Dragoon to Forever Entertainment.
They get limited exposure and deviate away from the originals.
I know it’s the games that really matter, but Sega could use the extra help from other companies promoting their games. Right now the current generation knows Sega as that company who makes really bad Sonic games. I remember every year Kotaku goes past Sega’s booths and has no idea what any of their franchises are, from Yakuza to even FIST OF THE NORTH STAR, AN ANIME/MANGA SERIES FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!!! If Sega can’t handle making games of their own franchises, outsource for help. Right now I’m seeing other companies making sequels to old Sega games, but Sega isn’t even producing them. That is not good for Sega, since they promised the revival of them. That includes Shenmue, Panzer Dragoon remake, ToeJam and Earl, Wonder Boy, ect. Meanwhile they have Judgement, which is cool. But then every Nagoshi game is. 🙂 You have Hatsune Miku…. which isn’t really a creation of Sega. Sakura Taisen, which is now being designed by the artist of Bleach which is kind of weird considering it’s supposed to be a sequel to an older game using the original art style? I like Shonen Jump’s artists, but man do the girls look completely different now. It’s like trying to watch the newer Tenchi stuff. It’s just weird. Fist of The North Star is now getting a mobile game, whoopie. It resembles the original story too….. What else does Sega have going on atm? Exactly. So why not just slap the logo on their older IPs? They gave permission to use em anyway.
ReviewTechUSA had concerns about this potential future, where all companies eventually break away from this 70s/80s model of business where their content is set to a singular hardware, because eventually all companies will have their own subscription platform as the old model becomes less relevant, it’s not that it’s a problem in itself he said, but it could be if you are a fan or follower of more than one com pany, because it means you will need to be a following subscriber of more than one company at a time, instead of just following one unified hardware platform that has several companies pushing their products on it.
Nowdays SEGA is extremely wise.
But Sonic Team is not.