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Sega Cancels Merger With Sammy
After many complicated and confusing rumors, Bloomberg Japan seems to have confirmed that Sega Corp has abandoned plans to merge with Sammy. Apparently, Sega couldn't agree financial terms with Sammy, who specialize in pachinko machines, and also have some home and arcade-based videogame development. The front-runner for a Sega merger/sale is now Namco, but Microsoft and Electronic Arts have also been mentioned as possible suitors. The saga continues..
Sammy is japan's largest pachinko operater, US articles say pinball but its really Pachinko, Japan's equivalent to the slot machine. There was a lot of annalysts questions the merger of Sammy-Sega because both companies don't have a lot in common except the arcade business, and the arcade business has been sliding for years. And yes, Sega is starting to get desperate.
whatever happened to your SMELL-O-VISION [google.ca] research?
One game released by Sega or Nintendo came with a book with scratch-and-sniff patches. It might have been Nintendo's Earthbound.
But that in and of itself doesn't mean Dr. Gupta isn't a fraud.
Will I retire or break 10K?
It may well be cool, but it's rather unlikely at the moment. Capcom's financial situation, while not desperate, isn't particularly good right now. They've been forced to cut down on the number of games they're developing by a significant margin, and rethink their marketing strategy. Apparently, the decision to make the Resident Evil series a GameCube exclusive isn't working out as well as they'd hoped, and they're moving that series back to cross-platform status, for instance.
The long and short of it is that Capcom just doesn't have the funds to make them an attractive partner for Sega, unfortunately....
Sean Daugherty "I have walked in Eternity -- and Eternity weeps."
The atmosphere around a DDR machine is something you simply can't get at home.
Perhaps not in a single-family residence, but at the school I went to, there was a weekly meeting of the DDR club, complete with region-modded PS1 systems, and that was full of atmosphere.
DDR had the first new control scheme (used in more than a couple of games) since the light gun.
Sorry, but Nintendo beat Konami to it: Power Pad. (This cartridge is fake.)
Will I retire or break 10K?
It seems that Namco just announced that they are cancelling their offer for a merger with Sega.
Japanese link here.
Please, people. Just look at his previous posts on slashdot. This guy hasn't worked for Sega.
Sorry, I should have cited my source originally....
I read the information from Gameforms, who got it from Nikkei Business Daily a few weeks ago.
The long and short of it is that RE4 will remain a GameCube exclusive, but "future Resident Evil titles will likely be released to multiple platforms."
http://www.gameforms.com/news/?768
Sean Daugherty "I have walked in Eternity -- and Eternity weeps."