so we can safely say now and for sure that the only remaining AM studios these days are AM1 & AM2 (except for some minor teams like initial-D and the kids related teams)
and for me it's clear that each department are focusing on a totally different business and strategy
No not really , the AM#3 lines are still there. You may well see AM#2 in VO credits for a few reasons: 1). AM#2 PR dept Handled the PR of the Arcade series as well as other titles, and 2). AM#2 ported the NA@MI game to XBLA .
i don't think the producer of Border break would end up with such a fabulous result if he is still in his own department
The main men behind BB were Shimoda-san and Mikami-san' who are SEGA AM#2 through and through and worked on the likes of Afterburner, Ghost Squad, VC 3 and VF 5.
because there was some info claiming that both PS staff & VC staff are working together within the same R&D (RPG team)
They was some talk of what was the Overworks staff working on a PS single player game
from my understanding there are 5 major teams, 3 consumer/ 2 AM
- Nagoshi's team (now known as SEGA R&D Division I)
- SONIC TEAM
- PS/VC staff
- AM1
- AM2 (now known as SEGA R&D Division II
Just give up on knowing the Teams names, not even the Teams know what teams are what at SEGA anymore (even joked about this in interview). Lots of people think the Val team are ex Overworks members (which there were) but at the time of making the game (PS3) they were in fact part of the Hand Held Division
even VT4 seemed to be way better than VT3 specially in the animation area
The game is being led by the AM#3 VT team and Kumagai-san. The main reason why the game looks and moves better is because it's leading on the PS3/360 and not Lindberg
As far as I ever heard it was staff that ran the arcade buisnesses like Sega Club that were let go, not game development staff.
They was also layoff's in the consumer and R&D sections too, but that was mainly voluntary or not getting new staff after retirements
This current SEGA forces the teams to churn out sequels after sequels rather than do more. I would like Team Valkyria to stop make Valkyria games now and get to work on Skies again
I said before the team is proven and proved they can handled a BIG production. Would really like to see the Team now work on a next gen SOA II with the Canvas engine
SEGA needs to sloooooow down with RPGs. Yakuza and Phantasy Star are all they need in that front. If anything they should be focusing on bringing these to all platforms available.
Yes and you're right (thought a SOA II would be nice) I really think SEGA needs to slow down on Yakuza series now. They're milking it a bit too much and the game (and the team imo) need a 2 or 3 year development period to bring in some new tech and freshness into the series
And do not get me started on Border Break... With the right marketing, that series could be huge outside of Japan, I am certain.
Yes give to a consumer team, to bring in a single play mode and up the GFX a little and it could be a nice 360 and PS3 multi player title
