Famitsu

Round Table: Our thoughts on SEGA Games’ new CEO Haruki Satomi

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SatomiLove

It has been a rough path being a SEGA fan, while I do feel like they have made some great games in the past decade, its easy to see that they have also made their fair share of mistakes. A few weeks ago the newly elected Sega Games Co. CEO and Vice President, Haruki Satomi had a interview with Famitsu where he discussed how he felt some games SEGA released in the last decade abused fan’s trust towards the brand and how they are learning from Atlus in the West.

Of course the internet was an uproar, some even stating that SEGA hasn’t released a good game in a decade. Regardless of how you feel about SEGA, its always good for a company to take feedback and be straight when talking about the company. So this week’s round table we discuss what we thought of Mr. Satomi’s interview.

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Yakuza Studio working on a non-Yakuza project

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YokoyamaMasayoshiNagoshiGio

In a new interview with Famitsu, Yokoyama Masayoshi (Series producer at Yakuza Studio (aka: Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio.) has confirmed that the team is recruiting for continued high end video game development.The team already housing 150 development staff, Masayoshi also confirmed that the team is working on a project not related to the Yakuza series albeit based on saying the team is making a non-Yakuza project.

With Tokyo Game Show around the corner and no major new Yakuza game being announced, is this the announcement that newly appointed SEGA Games Co CEO Haruki Satomi was hinting at? We’ll find out shortly as TGS is only a month away!

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SEGA Games CEO talks about fan reactions to his Famitsu interview

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If you missed it, Haruki Satomi the newly elected CEO of SEGA Games Co. (he was hired on April 1st) did a Famitsu interview where he talked about how SEGA has released software in the last 10 years that he felt betrayed fan’s trust in the brand. Says he believes quality Japanese games can sell in the West and among other comments that lots of SEGA fans across the globe agreed with.

Haruki Satomi obviously has been getting e-mailed by media about those comments and he sent the following message to Siliconera.

“Seeing our fans across the world respond to our recent interview with Famitsu, lets us know we’ve made the right first step in acknowledging who we are and where we want to be. Sega is dedicated to bringing you quality gaming experiences and becoming a brand you love and trust again,”

During the Famitsu interview, he said that they had a game to announce at Tokyo Game Show later in September, this will be one of the first glimpse at where Satomi wants to take SEGA in the future. So what do you think about his comments? Let us know what you think about his comments by leaving a comment in the comment box below (yo dawg).

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SEGA Japan CEO talks about earning gamer’s trust, learning from Atlus and focusing on quality titles

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HarkuiSatomi

[Update: It seems that their might have been some mistranslation when it came to Siliconera’s reporting on the story. While it said it was Hajime Satomi who was interviewed, according to Gematsu it was actually his son and newly crowned president of Sega Games co that was interviewed. It makes sense since he barely got the job in April during the restructure.]

Its easy to see that there have been issues at SEGA that they have been trying to get patched up. One thing is for sure is that SEGA Japan’s in-house gaming studios haven’t delivered titles that have been up to par and it always seems that they are trying to go triple A development and falling short with unpolished titles being released. It seems that long time SEGA CEO and President Hajime Satomi understands fan’s frustrations, he talked to Famitsu about how SEGA Japan has actually been learning from Atlus’ model of game creation:

“As far as the Western market goes, we learned a lot from Atlus. If we can make a title with proper quality, I believe there’s a good chance for it to do well even in the West for players that like to play Japanese games.”

It also seems that Satomi is really eyeing the Playstation 4 as a future console they want to release titles on, while the company has been only focusing on the Nintendo Wii U in the West in the last few years (it seems that might change):

“It may look rough if you look a it from a Japanese standpoint, but on a global scale the PlayStation 4 has a record-selling history, so I believe there’s a good opportunity there,”

While we know SEGA will have a big focus on mobile games, considering that a huge percentage of Japanese gamers are using the platform as its main gaming machine, Famitsu asked him what they are looking to focus more on when it comes to console games. Answer? Quality.

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New Persona 5 details emerge, main character details revealed

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Persona5
Now that the first Persona 5 trailer finally came out, everyone is left wondering when the first batch of new information will be out. Today’s your lucky day, since Famitsu has released some of the first details regarding the new Persona game.

The main protagonist in this game is a second year high-school student who recently moved to Tokyo in the spring. He doesn’t live with his parents, but friends of his parents, who just happen to live in a coffee shop. The protagonist is bonds with people who have recently lost their homes. The main character’s persona is called Arsène (most likely named after Arsène Lupin).

In the Famitsu issue they interviewed both Katsura Hashino (Producer and Director) and Shigenori Soejima (Character Designer) where they gave more info on the game.

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SEGA announces F2P RPG ‘The World End Eclipse’ made by the Valkyria Chronicles team

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Worldecplise
Famitsu reveals that SEGA has a new free-to-play ‘online theater RPG’ video game as they describe it. It will be launched this winter in Japan on the Playstation Vita, mobile and PC. Save data is said to carry over to all three platforms, online servers are also shared meaning cross-platform online play is a possibility.

The game seems to be online only and will have simplified RTS like elements that let you build, explore and fight. Battles are said to be mostly automated with ‘fast-forward and pause buttons’.  I can see this be SEGA’s take on the ever popular Clash of Clans franchise.

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Yakuza Zero screenshots and scans hit the internet

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KazumaZero

Scans and screenshots for Famitsu’s scope on the up and coming Yakuza Zero (Ryu Ga Gotoku Zero) have leaked and as expected both Kiryu and Majima have been given a much more youthful appearance. There’s not much more else to say but no doubt we should be hearing a bit more this coming Thursday, both the time when the latest Famitsu goes on general sale and the date Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio announced that they would be sharing more news on the project. With Tokyo Game Show around the corner, this title is SEGA’s second pre-TGS announcement following Hero Bank 2 and it promises that this will be just as busy as the last one.

Thanks to 真鵜雄 of our forums for the tip! Hit the break for higher quality pictures;

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Yakuza Zero is a prequel, will star a young Kazuma Kiryu and Goro Majima

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YakuzaZero
It seems that the latest issue of Famitsu has leaked and in that issue there have been a few things that are Yakuza related. It is confirmed that the game is set to take place in 1988 and will feature a darker, more Yakuza ran Kamurocho and Osaka district. Kazuma will be 20 years old in this game and takes place when he was the Tojo Clan’s debt collector. The other star of the game is no other than fan favorite Goro Majima who is 24 years old in this prequel and takes place while he was building the most popular cabaret club in Soutenburi.

The developers promise that many of the game’s characters will get origin stories within the game. This is a true ‘prequel’ since the events in this game lead up to the first Yakuza game. Its going to be interesting to see what they do with the new 80’s theme for the game, especially considering SEGA has had a 80’s theme game before: Shenmue. I would like to see the development team add some classic AM2 games in those Club SEGA arcades.

Color me excited for more information come TGS next month.

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Atlus CEO hints at future SEGA collaborations

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atlus-sega
If you have been living under a rock and didn’t know that SEGA bought out Atlus’ parent company Index Holding last year, now you know! In a recent interview with Famitsu, Atlus CEO Naoto Hiraoka and representative director and president Yukio Sugino talked about all things Atlus including their relationship with SEGA.

One of the topics was next generation consoles and Yukio Sugino went on to say:

“Compared to Atlus, Sega are on a much bigger scale [as developers], and our respective know-how is completely different. They’re much more advanced than us when it comes to tools and middleware.”

The exciting part is that later, the CEO of Atlus, Naoto Hiraoka stated that they had a meeting with SEGA CCO Toshiro Nagoshi about the future games Atlus plans to release. I would have love to be a fly on the wall during that meeting.

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Phantasy Star Nova’s atmosphere is highly influenced by Phantasy Star Online

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pso2nova_01
If you guys remembered that SEGA announced Phantasy Star Nova for the Playstation Vita back in September of last year. During the announcement we found out that tri-Ace (Resonance of Fate and Star Ocean) would be developing the game.  Not much information about Phantasy Star Nova has been release, till now.

It is confirmed that Phantasy Star Nova will take place in the same world as Phantasy Star Online 2 and have its own story. Characters in the game include Lutina (Maaya Uchida), Seil (Yoshitsugu Matsuoka), Izuna (Ai Kayano), Fordia (Miyuki Sawashiro).

The developers state that the game will be closer to Phantasy Star Online when you compare it to the atmosphere. ‘Survival’ is one of the visual concepts the team want to show in the game and there will be features such as costume destruction, which hasn’t been applied to a Phantasy Star game before.

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Shining Resonance: A new Shining RPG by the developers of the Wild Arms series

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ShiningResonance

It seems that SEGA isn’t done with the Shining IP, at least not for now. SEGA is still working on and promoting their Shining fighting arcade game and now they revealed that they are working on a Shining RPG for the Playstation 3. The game is called ‘Shining Resonance‘ and is being developed by Media Vision (Wild Arms series, Shining Ark and Valkyria Chronicles III). Tony Taka is also being confirmed as returning for the game’s character designs.

After the break we take a look at the first character announced, Kirika Towa Alma.

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Yuzo Koshiro will compose music for Persona Q

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32435-PQHEAD
Yuzo Koshiro has worked on music for a lot of games, but SEGA fans will always know him for his amazing work on the Streets of Rage series. In my opinion, this is what made Yuzo Koshiro a legend. Want more music from him? Don’t worry, it has been revealed that he will be composing tracks for the upcoming Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth.

Also announced to be working on the game is Yuji Himukai who is being brought aboard to design some monsters along with Shin Nagasawa. All three (including Yuzo Koshiro) worked on Etrian Odyssey (and Persona Q is basically Etrian Odyssey with Personas…).

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Persona Q influenced by Etrian Odyssey’s dungeon mapping and combat

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Famitsu

When Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth was announced, it seemed like it would take aspects of the Atlus’ Nintendo DS long running dungeon crawler Etrian Odyssey and according to this week’s Famitsu, I was partly right. They have now said that the game will feature a map-making feature similar to the one featured in Etrian Odyssey games. This map feature will allow users to draw the layout of the dungeon on the 3DS touch screen and help you find your way around.

That isn’t all though, the game will also contain ‘F.O.E.’ monsters and give you a choice if it you are better off running or allow you to ‘try’ and take down the monster. If you do decide to take do F.O.E. monsters, you might just get a special reward.

So Persona Q is Etrian Odyssey with a Persona storyline and characters from Persona 3 & 4. Persona Q is set to come out in America this fall.

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