On this SEGA News Bits, George walks Barry through the crazy rumor circulating about Microsoft buying SEGA. Is this happening? Let’s bust this myth!
If you want to support this type of content, you can check out our Patreon!
If you enjoy our SEGA News Bits segments and want to support us: Give us a sub and give this video a thumbs up so it shows up on more like-minded fans YouTube recommendations. You know, how that YouTube algorithm is.
Ad:Related posts:
SEGA News Bits: Crossover SRPG “SEGA Blast Heroes” Leaked
SEGA News Bits: New Sonic Movie Posters & Cast List Leak Reaction
SEGA News Bits: Sonic Adventure Remake Reaction & Discussion
SEGA News Bits: SEGA and CAPCOM Beat EA in Publisher Rankings
SEGA News Bits: Sonic The Hedgehog Movie Redesign and Trailer 2 Reaction
Die hard Xbox fans feeling insecure again?
If it’s a Microsoft buyout of Sega, I can see a scenario of all future Sega games could be Xbox and PC exclusive OUTSIDE JAPAN. Playstation and Switch Sega games only in Japan. Outside Japan all Sega games could be PC and Xbox console exclusive. This is the only way I can see all Sega developer staff staying at Sega beyond 2020 agreeing to a Microsoft buyout. Hardcore Playstation fans had better hope the Playstation 5 is REGION FREE if this scenario happens
It’s not going to happen buddy. Rest easy.
People who make these kind of guestimations are just console fanboys, they are not financial experts, corporate investors or legal scholars of any sort.
If you want a good way of telling what the real big moves are in the corporate world and how they are likely to play out, always follow the money trails, because money always talks.
So that said, right now, SEGA is doing very good. It’s an interesting company with a variety of revenue streams that stem from gaming to the resort businesses, though the latter will obviously be hit hardest thanks to the Chinese COVID-19.
SEGA is still making $1 billion+ in quarterly revenues; in Q3’19 during the holiday period, SEGA made $1.7 billion in revenues, and its profits were up a massive 52% YoY to $148 million. To put that into perspective, that’s roughly 1/3 of what Xbox makes every quarter.
SEGA is pretty healthy right now and its wealth of IPs and games libraries are the reason. Physical game sales slipped in the holiday period, but overall game segment earnings were up. Big software franchises like Yakuza were main drivers, coupled with hardware releases like the SEGA Mega Drive mini.
So again, it’s just Microsoft/Sony console fanboys who use these consoles made by these two companies as rallying points (instead of the actual companies behind them) and stirring up sellable rumours and speculation based on what they’d personally like to happen at worst or could happen at best, which are both based on their poor understanding of industry, corporate culture, economics and how it all ties in together.
There is not only no reason for SEGA to sell anything, there is no reason for Microsoft to buy either, the Xbox itself is less than 10% of Microsoft’s worth and entire empire coffers as a whole, so dedicating that amount of investment into buying into SEGA (which would have to go through the holdings company, Sega-Sammy) is never going to happen because that it is quite a huge buy (even for Microsoft) for an industry that doesn’t amount to 10% of their entire involvement.
However Microsoft is certainly keen to be bigger in other regional markets such as the UK countries of Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland, the 27 EU countries of Europe, Asian territory regional countries and of course Japan particularly – which is very weak for Microsoft, so it’s far more likely to be a partnership of some sort between Microsoft and SEGA which has a much stronger Japanese presence than Microsoft.
Folks like you confuse me, just absolutely bitter about everything xbox related for whatever reason. You, my friend are the one sounding insecure.
Buying Sega would be stupid anyway.
With a cheaper Capcom (Monster Hunter), Microsoft could emerge in japan.
Same with Square Enix (FF, DQ)
Except Atlus, only a few Sega games reach 500k in japan…
Sega is just a publisher, nobody’s going to bother. Every IP they have they outsource to cheap studios and most of their catalog is 2nd rate games. Only RGG Studios and Sonic Team produce anything.
I think it should or would
Sega is much more than a publisher, it’s a producer as well as a hardware manufacturer – arcade consoles, and owns its own anime studio – TMS, and it’s own resorts businesses in Paradise city.
David Bond Doubt it but would be fkg awful if that happened, Sega got messed up around enough with so many American companies and subsidiaries before in the past, last thing it needs is to be under an American wing like Microsoft, totally ruining everything that makes Sega what it is.
Plus look what Microsoft did to British 2nd party company Rare that used to be Nintendo’s greatest team partner, they were one of the best gaming companies in the world before Microsoft took over their management now they do next to fk all.
If Rare and Sega were American companies, there’s a very good chance neither would even exist anymore, American culture does not value companies and their independent corporate values the way that European UK and Japanese Asian and Japanese culture does.
But rest assured it can’t happen anyway, Microsoft has just got Konami for an absolute fortune even for Microsoft and Sega is s much much bigger company as part of the Sega Sammy conglomerate, not even Microsoft could afford that plus what would be the point unless both benefit from it, there’s no point unless middle management of both companies are happy with it
IN5ANE 5NIPER learn some game history. Some of the greatest Sega games were Original Xbox exclusives. Panzer Dragoon Orta, Jet Set Radio Future were very well liked Sega sequels
@Daniel Alvarez,
You sort of prove my point, you’re only looking at everything from an American perspective and even then only in the context of the games.
Learn game history? Why don’t you learn the industry history, especially on a global scale instead of just America – which is quite different from the rest of the world? Sega has always been bigger outside of America over all than it has been in America, it’s huge in Europe and even the earliest iteration of the SG-1000 had some support in parts of Europe, in fact America has consistently been Sega’s poorest performing market over all, now America is an important sector and if you do well there that’s a good indicator you are a testament of your work to succeed there but America is not the world, it accounts for just 5% of the globe but it is a singularly big market for a separate entity, however this is about Sega and while Microsoft is an American company, Sega is not, the Xbox is big in America but in the UK EU Jap and Asian territories it isn’t top dog there the way it is in the States.
What Microsoft wants is a stronger presence in these non American territories and Sega has a presence there (particularly in Asia) that Microsoft could only dream of, it was a missed opportunity on Microsoft’s part not to back the Dreamcast to the hilt when they had the chance because Xbox and Microsoft is considered a joke there and Xbox was consistently outsold by Dreamcast there years after Sega scaled back Dreamcast production. If this is one of these instances where Sega becomes the face of Xbox Series X there like Sega did in getting Hitachi and Samsung to brand their own regional Sega Saturn in their home territories like Korea, that would be a game changer for sure, but that’s just a testament of how important it is to have a broader more global perspective of the industry to have these understandings that you would never get from an American only perspective.
You also bring up that 11 game deal from 2002 where many of these initially planned Dreamcast games eventually made it to the Xbox, but what became of that, they were well liked but how successful were they really in the grand scheme of things?
If Microsoft ever bought SEGA or merged, Sega would no longer be Sega, and I think that would be the true death of Sega at that point, it would not be independent at all and it already has gotten lots of slack enough as it is for not being as Sega as they used to be in hardware.
I don’t get the logic of people who think mergers or buy outs are ever good things for the companies, they probably only think from the perspective of a console fanboy, which is the dumbest low IQ way of looking at things, it stunts originality and diversity by just big corps buying up smaller corps and making them all a more unified grey boring drab sameness in the industry with the same corporate personalities and cultures.