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..
If you want to know what would likely happen to Sega if EA bought them/"merged" with them(ha ha), take a look at anyone other company that got absorbed by the EA behemoth. OSI/Origin comes to mind in particular, though Bullfrog suffered a horrible fate as well.
I estimate that Sega would add their sports expertise to the dev team in EA sports and the rest of the company would either fold or become a factory for Sonic games(and even then, not for very long).
So . . . maybe we should be sad that Sammy didn't merge with Sega or buy Sega.