SEGA News Bits: SEGA Opens Official Online Shop in America

SEGA has officially launched their SEGA Shop store in the Americas, allowing the company to extract even more of your hard earned cash in exchange for more SEGA goodness. On this episode of the SEGA News Bits we discuss our thoughts on the SEGA Shop, we talk about some of our favorite items and discuss IPs we would like to see represented on the online store in the near future. Give the episode a listen and let us know what you think of the newly launched SEGA Shop in the comments below!

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Hatsune Miku: Project Mirai DX sold 24k copies in America on its debut month

Hatsune Miku Project Mirai DXAccording to NeoGAF user creamsugar (who is NeoGAF famous for leaking NPD sale numbers), Hatsune Miku: Project Mirai DX sold a total 24,000 units (estimated, physical only) in all of September. The game came out on September 8th, this would mean that it would have had 22 days on store shelves. Is this good or bad? Well, seeing as how Hatsune Miku: Project Diva f  on Playstation Vita sold 16,000 units back in 2013 and that was good enough for SEGA to bring more after that, I would say its good enough.

One of the reasons that these games don’t have to sell more than, lets say, something like Yakuza is because of the cost of translation. The more words, the more money. Of course there is more factors but that’s another topic for another day. What do you guys think? Is 24k too low for a niche rhythm game?

Get your facts straight: SEGA not having a booth at E3 2015 and what it really means

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SEGA finally confirmed the other day that they will not have an exhibition booth at this year’s E3. Following the news, it came as no surprise that much of the internet have been commenting on news stories being posted by ‘gaming journalism’ websites, spitting false claims that make me wonder if anyone even read the statement SEGA gave Game Informer. So without further ado, we will be looking at the most frequently made statements by internet users and whether these statements are true or false. I hope you guys enjoy.

SEGA still hasn’t registered as an E3 2015 exhibitor

Waiting for SEGA to announce their upcoming games and have them playable at events like E3? Well, you might be in for a shocker, seems that SEGA isn’t listed in registered exhibitors for this year’s E3.

Am I shocked? No, SEGA has already announced that they are restructuring and moving form San Francisco to the LA area this upcoming June. Sadly with the move comes a lot of the staff leaving and most likely people that helped with these events. I can see SEGA just showing off games with other bigger booths, like Yakuza 5 at Sony’s booth for example.

Personally I find that E3 is slowly becoming less relevant to consumers and wouldn’t mind if SEGA just focused on having their own version of Nintendo Direct where we see all the games coming in an hour long type of live stream. One thing with SEGA is that their fans are spread from Sonic the Hedgehog only fans to Total War only fans, these two fan bases have millions of users and having them come together for one stream will allow you to show them franchises they would otherwise never hear of.

What are your thoughts on SEGA not being registered for a E3 2015 booth?

[via: Sonic Stadium]

SEGA is not leaving the console market

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I just want to take this time to tell you guys the truth, not the half truths and not some clickbait articles that mainstream media have been passing around. I usually ignore this talk of ‘SEGA is dead’ or ‘SEGA is going out of business’ because this has been talked about in the mainstream media since the late-90’s and I just assumed  we were over these types of things. We are on the internet, I assumed someone would have pointed out fabrications if there where any and it seems not many have.

So is SEGA going to stop supporting consoles with games? The answer is: No. Here is what the statement from SEGA-Sammy said:

Local organizations managing packaged game software in Western markets will be streamlined. In the U.S. Sega of America Inc. based in San Francisco will be relocated to Southern California by this summer and its existing office in San Francisco will be closed, thereafter, which results in reducing fixed expenses, mainly in corporate functions. 

SEGA has stated that they want to focus more on digital games and PC due to the area having a bigger profit margin and considering there are over a 125 million active users on Steam and a billion plus market on phones, do you really blame them? Focusing on digital titles doesn’t mean that they aren’t making console ‘packaged software’. Nowhere in their press release did it say they were going to stop making console titles. If anything, they literally announced that they were bringing Dengeki Bunko: Fighting Climax to the West two days prior to this restructure announcement and a bit before that they announced Hatsune Miku: Project Mirai DX for 3DS.

SEGA of America going through another huge restructure, main office is relocating

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Here we go again.

First it was Europe, now SEGA of America is getting hit with some major restructuring. In a statement released earlier today, SegaSammy Holdings announced an “Implementation of structure reform” for SEGA of America. Included in this are some potential layoffs in the forms of “voluntary Retirement” and the San Francisco office moving to a new location in Southern California. Also, there will be a more narrow focus on the “amusement business” division.

However, it’s not all bad news. There will be a reinforcement in the “Sonic and merchandising businesses” and the PC and Mobile divisions will be getting a stronger push possibly due to strong current sales in those markets. The full statement can be found here.

I hope that not too many people are affected by the downsizing and those that do find themselves out of a job, that they find a new one quickly. I guess we shall see how this goes for SEGA.

Sonic Lost World demo arrives in the U.S. eShop

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Never say never, Sonic Lost World demo for both Wii U and 3DS hits the store today. What does this mean?  Well, it means that if you live in the United States you can try out Sonic Lost World for both Wii U and 3DS. The Japanese gamers have had the demos since early last month, lucky them!

Expect a SEGAbits review for Sonic Lost World to be posted soon.

Check out the Sonic Lost World US commercial


As a SEGA fan, I love a good SEGA ad. I don’t know why, but they just stick with you. Everyone remembers the catch phrases like ‘Welcome to the Next Level’ and ‘SEGA does what Nintendon’t’.

So here is the new commercial airing in the United States for Sonic Lost World. Like? Dislike? Let us know what you think in the comments.

Epic Scents teams up with SEGA to create scents based on SEGA IPs

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The guys over at Epic Scents think that gamers like me and you want to smell like video game characters, so last year they teamed up with Capcom to bring a Mega Man scent to the masses. As you can tell, Mega Man was sadly not busy doing games, so it all worked out.

Now Epic Scents wants to team up with SEGA to create some scents based on SEGA brands. They are expected to launch in this year, it seems. Hit the jump to read the PR statement. What SEGA brand do you want to smell like?

SEGA Genesis Classic Collection Gold Edition announced

SEGA has just announced SEGA Genesis Classic Collection Gold Edition, which will be released for the PC and contain 46 classic Genesis games. A full list of the games has not been announced yet, but  Sonic 2, Shining Force, Toe Jam & Earl, Sonic 3D Blast, and Virtua Fighter 2 have been confirmed.

This was announced by SEGA America, I assume SEGA Europe will stop releasing volumes and do this bigger collection as well. The collection is expected to hit store shelves on March 15th. Hit the jump for the press release (which says you can get the full list of games at SEGA.com, but at this time it’s not on there).
[Source: SEGA]

Yakuza 4 gets hostess trailer & demo date


Those people that missed chatting up the hostess girls in Yakuza 3 will be glad to know that they are back for the fourth installment. Don’t believe us? Check out the trailer!

As for the demo, it will hit PSN on February 15th… if you are a Playstation Plus subscriber. For some reason, they thought it was a good thing to make this demo timed exclusive. Rest of us have to wait till February 22nd, a week later.

[Source: SEGA]

SEGA’s top priority is the American market


Mike Hayes says that if they need to go in, buy some studios, it will do that. He says that he wants the SEGA brand to hold as much value as it does in Europe.

“What I need to do is find games that are more appropriate for the American territory. That is very much where the focus for the company is going to be, whether that is in acquisition or working with developers on commissions to create more product for the American market. Where those brands may be less successful in the US is where we have a bigger task in pulling Sega back to the position it was. We want Sega in the US to be in as good a position as it is in Europe. …We’re never complacent. We’re happy with our position in Europe, but I need to be able to build the American business quite aggressively over the next three to five years.” – Mike Hayes, President of SEGA West

It all sounds exciting, but what studio in America should they buy out and games should they release?

[via Go Nintendo]

Alan Pritchard now U.S. VP of sales and marketing


Do you reqonize the name? Alan Pritchard is moving to the U.S., from his old job in SEGA London. In London, he was managing director, now he will be VP of sales and marketing for SEGA of America.

“All of our central brand marketing initiatives will be done with Sega West in mind, rather than having our team in America going in one direction and our team in Europe going in another,” –Alan Pritchard (VP of Sales and Marketing)

So, what about the rest of the job shuffle? Hit the jump to see those.