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..

Comments

uh

[Anonymous Coward]

yes, a saga indeed. One that I've totally lost all iinterest in. I don't care where sonic goes.

btw, this color scheme sucks.

sega & namco

[nsda's_deviant]

A Sega-Namco would consolidate into Japan's largest arcade operater and hold 30% of the arcade market. Their consolidated software sales would command 10% of the market (Sega is 9th, Namco is 8th) but they would have some of the most coveted longterm licences on the planet like Soul Calibor, Virtua Fighter, Sonic & Tekken between them. An older news.com article points out. The real hope for gamers is Sega independence from Microsoft and EA so gamers could truly get more platform independent games. It would suck to see another Bungie/Halo exclusive to happen. Here's for Namco's success and gamers being lucky enough to see a Virtua Fighter-Tekken Crossover

Hey I've heard of you

[HanzoSan]

I dont know where but I've either met you or heard of you from some websitesa while back.
Sadly, our past leadership diverted too much funding towards fighting a war of attrition with Sony and Nintendo in the home space, when our competencies were really arcade machines

I dont think Sega is doing bad because they released Dreamcast, Sega's problem was they released the system knowing they didnt have enough money to go through with the launch. The system sold well, but Sega released way too many games, spent way too much money on games, and released too many new games which while its good for the industry, isnt smart for business, they should have released sonic, nights, virtua fighter 4, panzer dragoon and all this stuff instead of jet set radio and new games. Overall Sega spent more money making games that didnt sell than Dreamcast was worth, other than that Dreamcast was a good system, it sold well, almost 10 million systems in around 2 years is selling well by anyones standards.

Sega needs to stop being so much of a pioneer and focus on making money like other businesses. Sega may have the best developers, the newest technologies and the best franchises, in the end if Sega goes out of business its because Sega didnt properly run their business.

They could have made a fortune on Dreamcast and Seganet if they would have pulled a Nintendo and focused on their big games, N64 survived and didnt sell as well as DC did.

Re:A new renaissance?

[fishexe]

Witness the WWE. When it bought WCW, it changed its structure to be the Monday show vs the Thursday show. But its quality and ratings have faltered since it lost its real competition.

I know this is a cheap shot, but when did the WWE (or WWF before) ever have any quality to begin with?


Dance Dance Revolution was the last great major revolution in arcade gaming. It did what arcades used to do, but haven't done for some time - Provided a gaming experience you cannot get at home. Note the past tense, since I know home pads are now available, but I do believe DDR revitalized a lot of arcades. The atmosphere around a DDR machine is something you simply can't get at home. If I'm not mistaken, DDR had the first new control scheme (used in more than a couple of games) since the light gun.


I've figured out what's needed to save the ailing arcade industry now that the novelty of DDR is waning. Bars. Every major city neeeds at leas one bar with around 2 dozen arcade games in it. Half the people I know would be going to that bar every night, to the exclusion of all others.

Re:Sega + EA, could be interesting

[Babbster]

First of all, if Sega were under EA, there's every possibility that everyone in the Sega Sports division would be let go. Why? Because EA doesn't need them. The EA Sports line already eats Sega for lunch in that market and they have no fiscal reason to change that by messing a lot with their staff (note that I consider Sega's sports offerings superior but the market buys Madden and the rest based on both the EA name and the fact that Sega Sports was on Dreamcast which got crunched by PSX and PS2).

The same would be likely to happen to all of Sega's software units to one degree or another. It's relatively rare when EA takes a chance on something without a big-time brand behind it (see The Sims and Ultima Online) and, unfortunately, Sega just doesn't seem to get that brand recognition anymore. While some of us might say "Yay! Shenmue!" or "Cool! Panzer Dragoon!" the majority of EA's market would shrug and keep looking for the latest Medal of Honor game.

Except for annexing existing and potential competition in the form of Sega, EA would end up with very little by scooping up Sega. It would probably end up as a plus in the profit column just by disbanding the majority of the development units and selling the arcade unit separately - along with a few of the brands like Virtua Cop - to another company (like Namco, Konami or even Sammy).

As for Microsoft, they too would probably prefer to sell off the arcade unit, but there the Sega software development teams would be far more likely to remain intact (at least based on history). It would give Microsoft an exclusive big-name fighter brand (Virtua), a mascot to call their own (Sonic), a solid Japanese-style RPG brand (Phantasy Star) and a sports game division that could really take off (Microsoft's own sports games aren't bad, especially for being so new; and combining those efforts could end up being brilliant). In the sports area, I could see Microsoft going multiplatform if only to make EA sweat some 44-caliber bullets.

I guess my second-favorite choice for a merger would be Namco, but that's entirely sentimental. Both companies have problems and I'd be less concerned about an arcade monopoly (even with DDR, the arcade scene in the US is abyssmal so I consider that a Japanese problem) than I would be about two troubled companies merging into one bigger troubled company. Don't get me wrong. I would be as happy as anyone to see "Soulcalibur vs. Virtua Fighter" (once - I'm looking at you, Capcom) but I really have to wonder about the advantages, at least in console terms, that particular megacompany would gain from such a merger.

Then again, I'm no business expert. I'm just a guy who plays video games and likes to think that he's smart. Kinda like Ryo Hazuki, but without the butt-kicking.

Re:EA merger = Nightmare

[pommiekiwifruit]

Some companies chose instead to merge with EAs one time rivals, Acclaim. Look what happened to them. Other companies were taken over by Infogrammes (renamed "Atari" as of today). Look what happened to them. It is a rough industry for developers.

Re:Well

[Yorrike]

I am of the opinion that the best company Sega could ever merge with would be Nintendo.

Think about it. They have similar values, they're both soley games companies, they both have superb development houses, they've been teaming up on things such as the TriForce arcade board, F-Zero GC/AC and the like, and neither of them are afraid of trying new gaming genres out.

Plus, imagine a company that imployed Yu Suzuki,Yuji Naka AND Shigeru Miyamoto. The thought just makes me giddy. It'd give Nintendo one hell of a boost too. With Shenmue, Sonic, Mario, Zelda and Sega Sports titles being GameCube exclusive.

Makes sense to me.

Re:Well

[Yorrike]

One thing people tend to overlook, is the fact that Nintendo isn't losing money. They're gettin glower than expected profits, which is sending their share price down, but they're profits all the same.

Nintendo isn't going away, they're a strong company with a monopoly grasp on the handheld market.

Re:Not sure who will

[Babbster]

You're joking, right? The fact that the Dreamcast could "boot regular CD media without any mods" is one of the things that killed the system. People would buy the system and then simply download the games and/or copy games from friends.