When the Teams were split into 9 subs they each had their own funding and budgets to handle and that sparked a real golden age of creativity . These days we hardly know the teams , what they're up too or what the hell have happened to the likes of AM#1.
Even in the old SEGA enterprises days the teams still have their own identity and each with 3 or 4 lines . These days , even the major teams seem to only have 2 lines and their output is way short of what we came to expect from SEGA
The days when Sega had 9 teams all with console games, and barely reliance on publishing other peoples games, only lasted from about 2000-2002 (with preperation for games before).
Most of the times, Sega had 3 console teams, and 3 Arcade teams, AM4's Spikeout could be put into AM2, and AM5 Sega Rally games, and Touring Championship were pretty much part AM3.
Oh and AM1 is practicilly Sega China these days, with dev support (Sonic games, PSO2), Ports, and their own Arcade games (Golden Gun, Transformers Arcade game, K.O Drive).
And they have a second pipeline that does constant updates on the Sengoku Taisen Arcade game (and some other things).
And consolidation had to be done, itwas easier putting out a ton of games back then and required far less people.
That shouldn't come into it really. Each Yakuza gets a lavish budget and a huge team , yet the tech is often outclassed by the likes of FromSoftware can come up with ( with just 400 staff) , never mind the tech behind Lost Planet and so on .
Yakuza is expected to sell 500k and the games you mentioned 1mil. Yakuza had 1 year dev cycle, and the others 2 years and are aimed worldwide. Sure that has some influence on the overall quality.
Not asking for that . Just for SEGA to build on some of the engines its already made and share the tech between the Teams - get a good pool of tech and the piple lines up to speed . It's sad that tech like Canvas and Hedgehog wasn't built on and improved for 2nd and 3d generations of game- Like Ubi did with Anval or Capcom did with the Framework .
I would agree.
Yes by $25 Million dollars
Then how come Sega from 2008-2012 brought out so many games; as much as they had in the console years? R&D Money is not just for in-house and Sega Japan.