SEGA hit by 73 people layoff, more focus on digital games

[MadeManG74]

You are just some guy who complains that Jet Set Radio could have or should have been a bigger seller. It is just a damn game.

 :roll:  Can we please stop this. If you guys knew ANYTHING about games you would know that 'Jet Set Radio' isn't real. It was an April Fool's joke in DCUK Magazine about 10 years ago and it just caught on in various forums and became a running joke. The game doesn't exist and never did, I can't believe you people fell for it. I mean really, you bought the whole thing about Cel Shading on fucking Dreamcast!? I thought you guys were smarter than that...

[Team Andromeda]

There you go. . . werehog was a result of focus group testing on kids. That is called marketing making game design choices. It doesn't get more obvious than that. Face the facts

Please can we live in the real world. That is PR spin, and anyone that taken part in a focus group (and yes I have for SEGA, not Bull) need to know one thing . The questions are set out, to suit what is already being planned.

Like when asking what Retro games should put in a Retro pack,lets put in the Sonic games, then put in some unknown Mega Drive games that not many have heard much less played, knowing full which box will be most ticked (you then put in PR, we've listen to fans)
The Werehog was Sonic Japan idea, it was always going to be part of the game design.  In fact, if were to ask real fans, and ask (with out a choice of set answers,) Most would say that only want to play as SONIC, and only want a SONIC game.

What designates a console hardcore, core mainstream, or casual is the intended target audience of the marketing focus and corresponding development focus. Of course Wii is a casual console. How the fuck would having a small percentage of its library being hardcore games designate it anything else but casual.

Here’s the deal, every console is made to sell as many games and as many systems as possible. You’re going to sit there and tell me, that because the 360 has one of highest console to game sold ratio's, it’s the most Hardcore console ever? . The PS3 , X-Box 360 is a gamers console , not different from the Saturn or  Dreamcast.

Mega Drive like NES before it was a console that won great mainstream appeal yet the game design choices were in the hands of the game designers and not the marketing departments designating them gamer's machines rather than mainstreamers.

Those were in the days of 2D. The days when you needed just 6 people to make a game , less than 7 months of development time . No need for Licences cars , football teams be featured in your game . These days SEGA need official rights for After Burner in the Arcades, a team of 6 artists alone  . Its an totally different era.

Development costs are he biggest blocks to risk taking this gen.

The DC didn't perform well in Japan because it was completely overshadowed by PS2 hype. PS1 had won Japan over in the previous generation. . .Japan was Playstation country

Yes we all know Japan is casual City.

Quake, Duke, Doom back in their early days were selling to hardcore gaming audiences FPS didn't expand their demographics until later generations

There is nothing Hardcore about the likes of Duke or Doom. They are a genre that does well in the West, like JRPG's do will in Japan . So developers will make a lot of them for the west, while a lot of Japan developers will make RPG's instead . What next,  SEGA isn't hardcore because it jumped on the RPG bandwagon , with countless RPG's for the Saturn and DC .

I'm talking about Orta specifically, it like other Sega efforts were lost when Xbox got equated with Halo defining the audience for it. I don't get the Shenmue II comment? Yeah. . . like I said the market had shifted, that fits with what I'm telling you.

Orta came out long after HALO . It was a 3D shooter, a Genre that had limited appeal the world over, its not like 3D shooters were selling in massive number on the Saturn or PS even in Japan . Shenmue II  failed on the DC, so one can't even begin to blame the X-Box for that , that's my point .

It didn't make the sales to justify that. That's why it went to PSP. In the West it was too niche and hardcore. . . just what I'm telling you.

Its Niche in Japan mate, and SRPG's can sell well in the West , they have sold well On PC's in the past. You could on the one hand say SEGA was simply mad to even make a SRPG for the next generation of consoles (when the market for them is limited, even in Japan) , or on the other, say they were mad to make it only for one system .

Sometimes a game takes time to get established. I don't think GTA , Monster Hunter were massive sellers at the start, took them a couple of sequels to really get established,  Please stop this Hardcore 'Japan' nonsense.
When Japan has been for the most part,  the market that who ever has Square and Enix making games on your console, wins the hardware battle (what do you think killed the Saturn in Japan?) . The Japanese can't get enough of Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest , no different from the sheep that run out and buy the next HALO .

that the game market shifted screwing Sega with PS2 and Xbox generation and Sega management isn't going to take the financial risk to bring out sequels or new IP's of anything traditionally artsy, out of the norm, or quirky trademark Sega

I could make a massive quite insane list of Arty, risky PS2 titles  that are out of the norm , Hello amplitude, Hello ICO/SOC, hello Mojob- Ribbon,Hello Fantavision, Katamari Damacy , Taiko Drum  and God knows how many more.
Please top this nonsense that somehow only SEGA consoles were Hardware . They were only seen as Hardware core, because most of them failed to sell , end off

[Sega Stylista]

Please can we live in the real world. That is PR spin, and anyone that taken part in a focus group (and yes I have for SEGA, not Bull) need to know one thing . The questions are set out, to suit what is already being planned.

Being planned by the marketing department. . .

The Werehog was Sonic Japan idea, it was always going to be part of the game design. In fact, if were to ask real fans, and ask (with out a choice of set answers,) Most would say that only want to play as SONIC, and only want a SONIC game.

So this was SoJ's random whim?  Does that make sense?  The game's major market is American kids they are just following design directives designated by the marketing department.  Real fans?  That's the point. Of course they are not interviewing real fans as those fans are very small audience compared to the millions of kids that they are targeting that aren't oldschool Sonic fans! Your the one that need to awaken to the real world that we are living in an era of focus group researched game design.

Here’s the deal, every console is made to sell as many games and as many systems as possible. You’re going to sit there and tell me, that because the 360 has one of highest console to game sold ratio's, it’s the most Hardcore console ever? . The PS3 , X-Box 360 is a gamers console , not different from the Saturn or Dreamcast.

Duh, your stating the obvious. . .  The deal is that the market shifted and gaming as a niche industry evolved into a major mainstream pastime forever altering games.  What does the tie ratio have to do with the content? 360's  audience is very different from the one that played Saturn and DC, a much wider mainstream demographic spread.

Those were in the days of 2D. The days when you needed just 6 people to make a game , less than 7 months of development time . No need for Licences cars , football teams be featured in your game . These days SEGA need official rights for After Burner in the Arcades, a team of 6 artists alone . Its an totally different era.

Development costs are he biggest blocks to risk taking this gen.

And there steps in the marketing department designating the game to be designed to maximize mass appeal rather than the game designer's free artistic expression.

Orta came out long after HALO . It was a 3D shooter, a Genre that had limited appeal the world over, its not like 3D shooters were selling in massive number on the Saturn or PS even in Japan . Shenmue II failed on the DC, so one can't even begin to blame the X-Box for that , that's my point .

I'm talking about why Orta, Future, and Shenmue II didn't sell on Xbox.  Early on a lot of Sega fans saw Xbox as the defacto "Sega" console, but Halo defined a new audience for Xbox that saw the Sega titles kicked to a tiny corner of obscurity.

I could make a massive quite insane list of Arty, risky PS2 titles  that are out of the norm , Hello amplitude, Hello ICO/SOC, hello Mojob- Ribbon,Hello Fantavision, Katamari Damacy , Taiko Drum  and God knows how many more.
Please top this nonsense that somehow only SEGA consoles were Hardware . They were only seen as Hardware core, because most of them failed to sell , end off

The number doesn't matter it's the proportion as in percentage of titles that are artsy and out of the norm.  PS2 had a massive amount of software for it so the number of every kind of title on it is going to exceed DC.  The fact is that DC featured more unique, risky IP's as the system's key titles than any other system out there.

Please wake up and join most of the informed gaming world that there was a major shift in the gaming market with the arrival of Sony and Microsoft.  Those are giant corporations with a scope and focus beyond what Nintendo, Sony, NEC, and SNK did in the early days of gaming.  It is only rational and logical to except this, you are the one living in a silly world where the gaming market never evolved.

[Sega Stylista]

Or you can stop believing lies made by PR? These are the same people who said Sonic 3 and Knuckles would not fit on a Blu-Ray disc man, how stupid can you be to believe that shit?

Sonic Team readily admitted that the werehog was their idea and that SEGA America and Europe did not like it and wanted them to remove it. Of course I think the full story is that they wanted to appeal to more Japanese consumers as the genre does well there and Sonic has been doing horribly in that region for quite some time.

Wait your the one that believed that Sega of America begged them to take it out.  That is the PR bullshit making it look like a game design decision when in fact it was marketing driven.  Is it rational to believe they were trying to appeal to Japanese consumers when by far the largest market is American kids?  It's not. Sonic Team is never going to say "we put it in there because marketing told us" and marketing is never going to say "it's not a game design decision, it's just there to sell to kids".

What you should have said was that Shadow's game was designed with the 12-14 year old demographic in mind.

There you go. . . another obvious piece of marketing researched game design.

Every person I ever met in real life who was a fan of Valkyria Chronicles was a mainstream weeaboo who have huge Naruto collections and the like. They also do not even give a shit about SEGA and usually only buy games published by Atlas. I have no idea how these people are more 'Hardcore' than people who excessively play games like Call of Duty or Madden.

The only point is that is an issue between niche and mass appeal, not whether it is more hardcore or not.

What 'Market shift' do you keep mentioning? How can you be so certain that just because some Dreamcast games failed that everything must have changed for the worse? Where is your proof that Jet Set Radio would have sold on the Saturn, the Genesis, the Master System or any platform ever? You have not given any and most likely have not even thought about this.

Gaming evolved from a niche industry to a major mainstream past time.  Basically in the period from the late 90's to now.  Thus lowering the art of gaming for the sake of mass appeal. . .

Of course, I will always prefer games from the 16-bit era the most. This does not make them better, this is just what I prefer. The anger you have towards the whole industry now is that you liked games back in the day more than you do now.

If you prefer the artistic games of the 16bit era than you are actually sharing my view that the games of the older era of greater artistic freedom were far superior to their modern commercially defined, mass audience counterparts. The anger I have is towards the wave of mass audiences that invaded a once niche industry forever lowering gaming.

Maybe you are just losing interest in the medium? Either way, you are taking this all far too seriously. Like come on man, how can you hate on videogames at all? Back when we were kids, it did not matter what a title was about, as long as we thought it was fun. THAT was what games were always supposed to be about!

The industry has not changed for the worse, you have just let your opinion run wild for too long within the past few years, making you think you are better and smarter than everyone. You are not. You are just some guy who complains that Jet Set Radio could have or should have been a bigger seller. It is just a damn game.

I will totally admit to you that I am losing interest in the medium.  That is true. All games, including Sega.  What I am trying to do is trying to spark a counter trend to the current mass-marketing domination of gaming. I am under no illusion this can be done by one person, maybe I'm just testing my skill to influence the opinions of a few people and see what can spread from there.

I would like the editorial in this site to become more "Sega" more edgy in order to try to foster appeal for this counter trend I'm talking about. Right now, game marketers rule gaming.  Everyone under it is not a hardcore gamer but a hardcore game marketer's bitch!  

[Sharky]

Just to play the devils advocate but IGN and Gametrailers just shit all over Lost Planet 2...
both scored in the 6/10 range I think.

Capcom seem to be just as hit and miss as Sega.

[Sega Stylista]

I'm sorry to inform you, but After Burner, when it was out, was considered a 'casual' game due to how easy it was to pick up and play. Sort of how Space Invaders, Pac-man were as well.

Now they are hardcore cuz most of use grew up with them, but if a game comes out with the same principles, we all laugh at it and call it casual.

Sorry to inform you. . .

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6245000.ht ... op;title;1

"There's a generation of people who grew up with a set of games like Centipede," Bach said. "They ---->look almost like casual, fun games today<----. At the time they were high-end, edgy games. Game Room is the idea of bringing that back to the market and bringing it to a very broad audience."

How old were you again when Space Invaders and Pac Man came out?

Okay. . .

[Sega Uranus]

Wait your the one that believed that Sega of America begged them to take it out.  That is the PR bullshit making it look like a game design decision when in fact it was marketing driven.  Is it rational to believe they were trying to appeal to Japanese consumers when by far the largest market is American kids?  It's not. Sonic Team is never going to say "we put it in there because marketing told us" and marketing is never going to say "it's not a game design decision, it's just there to sell to kids".

Uhhh, no. Sonic Team and SEGA Japan themselves even said both SEGA America and SEGA Europe wanted the werehog out as soon as they found out of it. SEGA America's new response to the matter is that children liked it. It is not technically lying, but they would have preferred it out. Sonic Unleashed was an attempt to recapture the hearts of everyone, all kinds of gamers, it failed. The next major release most likely will not have anything like the werehog at all.

I realize a lot of people hate SEGA America and that they have done a lot of stupid shit, but many say they do bad stuff just because they are assholes. This is stupid, look it up next time instead of assuming.

There you go. . . another obvious piece of marketing researched game design.

Except you completely skipped my topic about the Pico and Disney related games SEGA made in the 90s and 80s which completely breaks your argument.

Gaming evolved from a niche industry to a major mainstream past time.  Basically in the period from the late 90's to now.  Thus lowering the art of gaming for the sake of mass appeal. . .

Every medium will be able to grow, that is just progress.

However, saying art is being lowered to appeal to a wider audience is just not right. Paintings are still paintings, movies are still movies, comics are still comics, videogames are still videogames. Art is perceived in the eye of the beholder, and for one person (like yourself) to just feel they have an all-knowing presence of what is right and wrong is just... Well, wrong!

If you prefer the artistic games of the 16bit era than you are actually sharing my view that the games of the older era of greater artistic freedom were far superior to their modern commercially defined, mass audience counterparts. The anger I have is towards the wave of mass audiences that invaded a once niche industry forever lowering gaming.

No, I just like how incoherent games were back then, how it was impossible to tell what a digitized voice was saying, why when you smashed a trashcan on a dirty street a steaming, fully cooked turkey was waiting for you on a plate, or how everything in the damn world - Even basic appliances or the like - was out to get you to the point of hilarity. Seriously, you would never see a blimp level in a game now have it's doors open and close fast to try and suck you out of it, and if there is one, someone needs to point me in the direction of it!

I do not think any of that is art, it is just enjoyable for me because it is so weird and stupid. I like the soundboards and graphics of yesteryear as well, but you can still get indie games with styles like this anyways, and sometimes they are cheaper or even free! If anything with stuff like this, the industry is better than ever!

I will totally admit to you that I am losing interest in the medium.  That is true. All games, including Sega.  What I am trying to do is trying to spark a counter trend to the current mass-marketing domination of gaming. I am under no illusion this can be done by one person, maybe I'm just testing my skill to influence the opinions of a few people and see what can spread from there.

I would like the editorial in this site to become more "Sega" more edgy in order to try to foster appeal for this counter trend I'm talking about. Right now, game marketers rule gaming.  Everyone under it is not a hardcore gamer but a hardcore game marketer's bitch!  

Well I am sorry to hear that, but it just sounds like you should be making your own games. I am on my way to develop and design some of my game ideas because I think I have cool concepts people will enjoy, and if they do not I will just try my best having fun with working on other kinds of games!

If it is not that, then maybe you just have the wrong hobby or something. Every post you make seems to be at least in a slightly negative outlook or mean-spirited look on other companies. It just does not seem like you are enjoying any of this.

[MadeManG74]

I would like the editorial in this site to become more "Sega" more edgy in order to try to foster appeal for this counter trend I'm talking about. Right now, game marketers rule gaming.  Everyone under it is not a hardcore gamer but a hardcore game marketer's bitch!  

It's funny, because you are a bigger tool for 'game marketers' than anyone here. You're also hurting the industry much more than anyone here.
You don't even buy good games when they come along, you just ignore them and then wonder 'Why didn't they sell!?'.

Did you buy Tatsunoko vs Capcom, De Blob, Overkill, Madworld, Dead Space Extraction, Silent Hill Shattered Memories, Muramasa on Wii? No? Well then you're a part of the problem. You sure as hell bought the casual, mainstream Sonic and Sega All Stars Racing though didn't you? Great work killing the industry bro! Enjoying being a bitch to the marketing men?

Do you even try to play any games that aren't forced on you by the gaming press? Have you even played Zeno Clash for example? Probably not, and yet here is an independant made game with some bizarre gameplay and design, but you're too busy thinking about Call of Duty and Iron Man 2 instead.

Your idea of 'Edgy and hardcore' is just pissing and moaning about everything and anything, and ignoring good games so you can complain about ones you don't like instead. I would rather that SegaBits stayed very far away from that.

Sorry to be nasty, but you really are just being ridiculous about all this.

[George]

I'm sorry to inform you, but After Burner, when it was out, was considered a 'casual' game due to how easy it was to pick up and play. Sort of how Space Invaders, Pac-man were as well.

Now they are hardcore cuz most of use grew up with them, but if a game comes out with the same principles, we all laugh at it and call it casual.

Sorry to inform you. . .

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6245000.ht ... op;title;1

"There's a generation of people who grew up with a set of games like Centipede," Bach said. "They ---->look almost like casual, fun games today<----. At the time they were high-end, edgy games. Game Room is the idea of bringing that back to the market and bringing it to a very broad audience."

How old were you again when Space Invaders and Pac Man came out?

Okay. . .

Look child, I was not talking about Centipede.

I was talking about Pac-Man and Tetris.  :lol:

Though Edgy =/= hard core. Edgy means it was 'different' at the time. Nintendo's Wii Fit , believe it or not, is edgy. Exercise and video games? They do not go hand in hand. But they made it work.

[max_cady]

Martin The Fat Ninja was let go.

: (

Wait,what?

Damn it, I'm gonna miss him walking around Gamescom and E3 dressed up as a ninja.  :cry:

[ribbitking17]

sounds like we got alot of whiners here

[Barry the Nomad]

sounds like we got alot of winners here

Fixed that for yah!    

[Pao]

Alan Pritchard interview...
http://www.mcvuk.com/features/683/INTERVIEW-Sega

[Team Andromeda]

What does the tie ratio have to do with the content? 360's audience is very different from the one that played Saturn and DC, a much wider mainstream demographic spread.

Only because its sold better . It doesn't get any more wider or mainstream than the PS and PS2 era ,  And SEGA was a part of that hardware battle  trying to chase the same gamers ,  just SEGA lost out.

So this was SoJ's random whim? Does that make sense? The game's major market is American kids they are just following design directives designated by the marketing department.

It was always meant to be a part of the game design, lets face it . You then make up a Questionnaire , with limited number of boxes to tick , and a set limit of questions . Like which  MD games would rather see on XBLA SONIC or Last Battle.
So you know more or less the answer most people will give , before a box is ticked . Its just basic good  PR.

And there steps in the marketing department designating the game to be designed to maximize mass appeal rather than the game designer's free artistic expression

The trouble is the cost of games development . Games now cost 10 to 20 million plus . Not many developers will risk that sort of money on a Arty Game or new IP , with out being pretty sure it will pay off.  Its not just down to a new breed of gamer , its more because games cost so much , and need so many people to make these days . That what's killing risk taking .

I'm talking about why Orta, Future, and Shenmue II didn't sell on Xbox. Early on a lot of Sega fans saw Xbox as the defacto "Sega" console, but Halo defined a new audience for Xbox that saw the Sega titles kicked to a tiny corner of obscurity

X-Box was the best console to buy if you were a SEGA fan. HALO was a launch time , it was a In-House title  MS was always going to push that game . Other non MS IP sold well on the X-Box . Splinter Cell plays noting like HALO or is a FPS , and came out after HALO. It sold well . SEGA core gaming audience wasn't there for the Dreamcast mate, nothing to do with MS .

The fact is that DC featured more unique, risky IP's as the system's key titles than any other system out there.

That is wrong mate , There's a million and one new and risky IP on systems like the PS or PS2 . I mean would couldn't get much more risk taking or Arty style of games than the likes of Vib ribbon or Ore No Ryori , or what about the like of ICO or SOC for the PS2 .

Please wake up and join most of the informed gaming world that there was a major shift in the gaming market with the arrival of Sony and Microsoft. Those are giant corporations with a scope and focus beyond what Nintendo, Sony, NEC, and SNK did in the early days of gaming. It is only rational and logical to except this, you are the one living in a silly world where the gaming market never evolved.

You'e having a laugh , For starters NCL and NEC are massive corps . In my view SONY and MS have done more for gaming the past 10 years , than any of the drivel that's come out of NCL .  Most of SEGA issues were/are of its own making . SEGA screwed up the 32bit battle, and it never recovered from that sadly

[Sega Stylista]

hi TA, good to hear from you. . .thanks for the allstar bump.

What does the tie ratio have to do with the content? 360's audience is very different from the one that played Saturn and DC, a much wider mainstream demographic spread.

Only because its sold better . It doesn't get any more wider or mainstream than the PS and PS2 era ,  And SEGA was a part of that hardware battle  trying to chase the same gamers ,  just SEGA lost out.

hmm, I just read an article blaming the "PS2 generation" for the death of arcades. . . I'm going to try to find that article for you and link it here (eventually, I'm on vacation), it reads like one of my rants.

It was always meant to be a part of the game design, lets face it . You then make up a Questionnaire , with limited number of boxes to tick , and a set limit of questions . Like which  MD games would rather see on XBLA SONIC or Last Battle.
So you know more or less the answer most people will give , before a box is ticked . Its just basic good  PR.

I went back and read some Sonic Unleashed Sonic Team interviews on IGN and elsewhere at the time of the game's release.  They were targeting western audiences primarily and younger players. . .they talked about working very closely with the western marketing teams. . .they just designed the game with elements to appeal to those audiences.  They probably felt western casuals wanted to see more traditional platforming levels than the more 'arcadey' speed and rails Sonic.

The trouble is the cost of games development . Games now cost 10 to 20 million plus . Not many developers will risk that sort of money on a Arty Game or new IP , with out being pretty sure it will pay off.  Its not just down to a new breed of gamer , its more because games cost so much , and need so many people to make these days . That what's killing risk taking .

I don't disagree, but I would rather see more SFIV like titles that are gameplay-centric, hardcore with mainstream appeal, don't cost $50 million and are profitable for the publishers.

X-Box was the best console to buy if you were a SEGA fan. HALO was a launch time , it was a In-House title  MS was always going to push that game . Other non MS IP sold well on the X-Box . Splinter Cell plays noting like HALO or is a FPS , and came out after HALO. It sold well . SEGA core gaming audience wasn't there for the Dreamcast mate, nothing to do with MS .

Did you mean DC or Xbox?  Halo was audience defining.  Xbox became the fps machine. . . Splinter Cell-western gun game, close enough.  I don't disagree with a lot of your points but you just don't budge on the fact that there was an audience change or shift and it didn't exactly jibe with what Sega had been in the past.

The fact is that DC featured more unique, risky IP's as the system's key titles than any other system out there.

That is wrong mate , There's a million and one new and risky IP on systems like the PS or PS2 . I mean would couldn't get much more risk taking or Arty style of games than the likes of Vib ribbon or Ore No Ryori , or what about the like of ICO or SOC for the PS2 .

No, dude.  I'm talking Sega's launch line-up and key titles throughout its life, compare that to Tekken, Ridge Racer and other more mainstream stuff that PS2 launched with.  Don't make this a quantity argument because PS2 wins in every regard in terms of quantity over DC.

Those million and one new IP's weren't launch titles right?  And If you make a Top 10 list of key PS2 title they wouldn't be in them, right?  If you made a DC top 10 it would have Shenmue, Rez, Jet, Seaman etc a much higher proportion of risky IP's in its launch and key title list.

You'e having a laugh , For starters NCL and NEC are massive corps . In my view SONY and MS have done more for gaming the past 10 years , than any of the drivel that's come out of NCL .  Most of SEGA issues were/are of its own making . SEGA screwed up the 32bit battle, and it never recovered from that sadly

Well, Sony was much larger than NCL back in 94 when it entered the show. . .

Oh god, gag me. . ."SONY AND MS DONE MORE FOR GAMING!?"  Blah you are a corporate gaming fanboy!

TA,you are contradiction. . .

You are the guy wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt espousing the virtues of capitalism?!

Team Andromeda was a casualty of modern mainstream gaming and the new audiences that festered to it and you defend the Korporations that relegated her to a faded memory of more hardcore days!

I'll post that link to the article I'm talking about here eventually. . .