Once upon a time, Sega was a major force in the gaming industry- a titan and a giant, sparring with Nintendo, defining the future the industry would take with every move and step that it took. That was then. Today, Sega is a diminished publisher, making games for other companies’ platforms, usually messing things up, and sabotaging its own success. It has been a very long time since Sega was a major name for gaming fans.
However, it is looking to change that- in presentation made for investors outlining Sega’s plans for growth till 2020, Sega outlined its desire to be a publisher of global hits, with a multiplatform game strategy targeting PCs, gaming consoles, handhelds, and mobiles. It identified several key brands for growth, such as Total War, Football Manager, Sonic the Hedgehog, Yakuza, and hearteningly enough, Persona, and promised to pare back its output to a lower number of games, but each game being more meaningful and impactful.
Simultaneous releases of its major games appears to be a major point Sega is targeting to this end – which should come as welcome news to long suffering fans of Persona and Yakuza, who have to wait months or years to play the latest games in those series. It also sounds like Sega is distributing its brands among its various studios worldwide- for North America, it has identified Company of Heroes, Dawn of War, and interestingly enough, Sonic. That said, it is also going to push for new IPs across all of its studios worldwide.
I have an abiding love for Sega, and I would love to see them roaring back to form. More than anything, I would love to not have to wait a year longer than my Japanese friends to play Persona 6. So all this is good news, as far as I am concerned.