When Nintendolife posted the 90% profit news, I was excited that SEGA could possibly go bankrupt. But people bashed my comment saying that I don't care about millions of people losing their jobs. While at the time of posting that comment I couldn't understand it because well, you can always find another job, I seem to understand the point now a little.
SEGA is as likely to go bankrupt as Namco Bandai or Level 5, of course they're not as likely to go bankrupt as Nintendo, but still the chances of them to go bankrupt is relatively low. Also research up on Japan's economy, it's not as easy to get another job, especially in a culture that pays for long term loyality. New employees are unlikely to see the same sort of benefits as old ones.
But either way, I can't see how SEGA can do a 180 degree turn. They lost Shenmue, They refuse to localize Phantasy Star Online 2, they released Yakuza 5 on PS3 instead of PS4/PC and to top it all of, they barely make use of their IP.
Mobile games, expansion into Asia, developing of Western games and pouring more money in back into one mega project that is likely to succeed (IE Sonic) rather than focusing on several smaller projects that all fail. We're already seeing some successes here, titles like Chain Chronicle and Puyo Quest have grossed over $100 million for SEGA and Yakuza is now successful in certain Asian markets. However you seem to be mixing SEGA Sammy and SEGA Consumer Division (Specifically retail packaged games) up.
The only reason why many would defend SEGA is because SEGA has Atlus and some western developers who make quality games. But even their games are completely niche. Shin Megami is nowhere as famous as Final Fantasy and so is Phantasy Star.
Not sure I follow this point, even if a product is niche (Which I assure is not the case with stuff like SMT, niche should be for titles that are lucky to 100,000 worldwide) it depends on expectations vs final result. Total War, Football Manager, Company of Heroes and Persona haven't really missed many expectations.
How can SEGA win back and gain huge profit at this point if nearly everything they release doesn't end up selling well for them in the long run? Sonic sure as hell isn't saving them if the 25th anniversary game doesn't end up doing well because a lot of people said that they would stop being Sonic fans if this new Sonic game fails.
See who are we exactly talking about here, you mention SEGA but seem to include all of SEGA Sammy in this. Because if you want to focus on the game division alone, it's not really going anywhere. For now the majority of SEGA's profits are going to come from mobile games, which is a field they've seen good profits in.
Now...the way I see it is that they somehow do well in Japan than in the west. And honestly, they are better of being in Japan and ditching the western market if they can't understand expectations that the western market has. Sure, even Nintendo sometimes doesn't satisfy everyone but they still give satisfaction and end up getting profitable regardless.
They are not going to ditch the Western markets;
Sonic: Usually sells over 2 million
Total War: Usually sells over 2 million
Football Manager: Usually sells over a million
Company of Heroes: Usually sells over a million
They're not about to ditch 6 million in sells, plus whatever their niche (And Atlus' products) throw in the DLC these series also have now and its not a simple case of 2 million sales = x, it's going to be 2 million + x amount of DLCs people have purchased.
But let's entertain the idea SEGA goes bankrupt, outside of Sonic, Phantasy Star, Yakuza and Puyo, no one is going to even bother with their Japanese catalogue, Atlus had Persona in their collection and after SEGA it was a hedge fund that was the highest bidder for them. Them going bankrupt will solve zero ills you have with the company, unless you just want to see more Sonic games.
