Sammy has bought Sega, which will almost certainly have an impact on Sega’s future development plans. I expect games will be cancelled left, right and centre as Sammy focuses its new assets on dominating the arcade industry.
Please tell me I’m wrong.
At least Sega will survive… thought that’s one of the only bright sides I can see.
I can imagine Sega living on in name only. We may never see another Panzer game now.
I wonder if anyone will leave as a result of this takeover. Sammy will probably sell off certain assets that its grand business plan views as redundant after seizing control.
The fact that the report is now giving a 404 possibly means it was taken down due to it being untrue…
[quote=“Arcie”]
The fact that the report is now giving a 404 possibly means it was taken down due to it being untrue…[/quote]
No, it’s still there.
You can also find a report about the Sammy takeover at Eurogamer.net
If this report does turn out to be false, I won’t hesitate to delete the topic and pretend this never happened.
What pisses me off is that I saw in SEGA a company I could always trust on.
Now I’ll to guess if games are good or not…
I know that the developers will be the same but marketing will shift and with that …
I am sure that many of Sega’s first-party developers will disband after this - kinda like how Monolith Soft broke away from Squaresoft and defected to Namco. And as that example showed us, it was a very good thing.
This does not mean this is the end of the Panzer Dragoon series - far from it. It just means that the next Panzer game might not have the Sega label, is all - which is a shame.
There will hardly be a difference, even with this transition. Satomi-san was in charge of Sega before, and how did that change things? Hardly at all.
And no, there will be no mass seccession of developers (and they’re not called first party developers… they’re internal teams).
[quote=“Geoffrey Duke”]Sammy has bought Sega, which will almost certainly have an impact on Sega’s future development plans. I expect games will be cancelled left, right and centre as Sammy focuses its new assets on dominating the arcade industry.
Please tell me I’m wrong.[/quote]
Sammy could have already cancelled the games if they wanted to, as they pretty much already had control over Sega. Look on the bright side, this could mean Sega finally gains some financial stability and are able to do what they do best: make games. Why would Sammy pull Sega out of the console business? I doubt they’re going to invest that amount of money simply to let Sega make arcade games for them.
And this is another reason that it’s good games like The Matrix Online, Warhammer Online, Football Manager etc get published by Sega, they are games that are bound to sell well so that will show Sammy there’s profit to be made in the home software market as well. (In their announcements the reason they wanted Sega to focus on arcade is because they had a lot more profits there than the home game market)
Warhammer Online is getting published by Sega!?
I TAKE IT BACK! SEGA MMORPG’S RULE!
Well, I don’t think the news is good, but to be honest I don’t think it will affect Sega’s games THAT much (though I might be wrong about that). Everyone was quite worried when Sammy became the largest stock holder when they bought out the 20-odd% shares from CRI, but in reality they went on with buisness as usual (though a few members left). I think we’ll still see normal Sega games from them, even though their name will now be Sega Sammy…something-or-other. I think the biggest change will happen if people leave because of the takeover, but it’s quite possible that many of those people will defect to their own company, so in the end we’ll still see games from talented developers whether they’re with Sega or not.
I do wonder how this will affect the possibility of another Panzer Dragoon, or Phantasy Star, or even Virtua Fighter game, but I’m fairly confident that this buyout doesn’t completely eliminate the chance of them seeing the light of day.
That article is quite a pos (imo) so whether they say they did it like this on purpose or not I still seriously doubt people that “have worked with Sega for years” would ever express these things in this way. Unless ofcourse they were Sega janitors or something that had no idea about what exactly the company is doing…
Either way even if this is “real” whatever was it’s point, to me it was lost cos of the huge exagerations, stupid things like “SAMMY IS STEALING FROM THE POOR” (WTF, just cos it’s cheap doesn’t mean they will FORCE people to play on them) etc… Plus the ways they want to “help” Sega aren’t going to work at all…
Dont be crazy!
…
They wont even live on in name now, they will be called Sega-Sammy
I disagree with this being bad news. I believe we cannot tell at this point. The Sega name in my opinion will not change, I think it will still be just SEGA. If they were to change it, it would lose it’s appeal and in the end hurt the company. As for canceling games left and right, possibly but I doubt it. A new Phantasy Star game was just announced so I don’t think that will be canceled, and Virtua Fighter has garnered some following on PS2, so a I believe that they will definitely continue that series.
Sammy I think knows that if they try to turn SEGA into a company which just goes with the most mainstream products and ideas that in the end it will die out. They need to build on their creativity, which is still there to a degree. 2 new shining force games, altered beast, a new Phantasy Star (even though its an action RPG) Headhunter: Redemption, and with the new handhelds coming they could really gain some ground there.
We waited years for another dragoon, but it came in the end. This is far from the end of SEGA, just a new age. How it will turn out is anyones guess. But i bet we’ll see the dragon fly again.
From a serious point of view, I agree that we will have to wait and see whether this will be a good or bad thing. Also I think that it would be very unlikely indeed that Sammy would cancel Virtua Fighter, it is an arcade game and Sammy will obviously want to have Sega and Sammy both working on the arcade industry so they may even start new arcade games from Sega. As for RPGs etc well we will just have to wait and see. I do not think Sammy would make a game that it didnt know to be profitable though, would they really make Shenmue 3 for Sega’s reputation’s sake? I think not however I dont have all the answers so we will just have to wait and see. This isnt the end though, it is just means Sega will probably have a more arcade based output.
My thoughts exactly; I don’t think there’s anything deeply, intrinsically negative about this, no matter how worried Sega fans seem to be about any possible “change” in the company. For all we know this could be the best financial thing to happen to Sega for years; I admit that it might not be, but we’ll just have to wait and see…
I don’t think it’s really worth paying attention to that “Save Sega” page, either. They didn’t exactly help their cause with the ridiculous article about Sega and Sammy; that was a complete sensationalist joke…
I feel like writing something positive about this takeover, but I can’t find the words. After seeing Westwood Studios and Interplay assimilated by other companies I’d be very surprised if Sega’s business ethos didn’t undergo any drastic changes within the next few years. I’m hoping for the best, yet expect the worst. Just from reading old financial press reports concerning Sammy and Sega, it seems Sammy has been throwing its weight around since it bought 22% of Sega’s shares. Sammy wants Sega to stop focusing on the console market (a policy which hasn’t changed) because this is the source of Sega’s lost revenue in recent years, and concentrate on Sammy’s Atomiswave board which is basically a glorified Dreamcast. What’s to stop that from happening now?
No one will be welcoming the supposed financial stability Sammy has brought Sega if people start leaving Sega or if Sammy starts selling off Sega’s now redundant assets. I’ve seen too many takeovers to know that the Sammy takeover of Sega isn’t necessarily in Sega’s best interests. I hope I’m wrong.
And you know this how, exactly? Please provide proof. If you can’t, stop making BS claims.
Think about it: Sammy has been trying to break into the console market for years now. They spent tons of money trying to get Sammy America off the ground… why would they pull out now? Especially when they’ve got the Sega name now.
And you talk about how things are going to change for Sega. Let’s say things do change. Pray tell, what is it about the current Sega that you, in particular, actually like? All you’ve done is complain about the way Sega has been handling things for the last several years. And now you’re saying things are going to change, and you’re complaining again. You’re starting to make me think that all you want to do is complain about Sega.