Slashdot Mirror
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..
... but a merger with capcom would be pretty cool
Preferrably Namco would be the one to get Sega.
Microsoft getting them will just kill the fun for everyone else, as you'd never see a Sega game for anything but XBox.
And we all love the XBox, now don't we?
EA isn't much of a choice either, their focus seems to be too much on the sports games, and I fear Sega's other divisions would be pared down in favor of the soccer/baseball/etc. divisions.
Just gotta wait and see.
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.
Pachinko is a load of balls......
(ugh!)
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
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
I don't know about everyone, but for me, I have switched from being a EA NBA Live fan to NBA 2k fan. From my opinion, I think EA Sports really tear their NBA series apart; given, they really don't have lots of other competitors on other sports games. NBA Live series has turned into "hip" action pact nonsense, while Sega's NBA 2k series are realistic and well designed in many aspect.
It would be interesting to combine these talents and see what the will come up with next. I am not a savvy sega fan, but it would be interesting to see if Sega can bring better games (especially in the RPG section) through EA.
Although as some posters mentioned before, that is if EA doesn't eat Sega for breakfast, just like they did with some previous companies
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.
So Sega has cancelled their merger with Sammy. The other options now are Namco, Microsoft and Electonic Arts. I hope Namco wins, or maybe even Microsoft. Microsoft, to be frank, would not be a bad choice at all. Microsoft and EA are kind of polar opposites; they are the two largest entertainment PC software publishers, I do believe, but while EA buys a company and siphons all its talent into what a boardroom wants to see published -- works for earning money, but kills the spirit and originality of the companies like Bullfrog and Westwood -- Microsoft has a tradition of "do as thou wilt" when it comes to its attendant developers. MS gives them money, they give MS good games.
There is, however, one possible problem with Namco merging with Sega -- there would be no more competition left in arcades except between divisions of the same company, and while internal competition can be fierce, it's no replacement for honest to god competition. 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.
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.
Arcade competition tended to be between Namco, Williams and Sega. Capcom had its own private war with SNK as well. Then Williams completely folded its arcade division, which leaves Namco and Sega, with Konami running DDR machines. So instead of incrementally improving fighters, racers and light gun games (Tekken vs VF, Time Crisis vs House of the Dead, etc) maybe this would give them a chance to truly compete with the home market and provide games that can only be provided in an arcade setting.
How do you compete with the home market? Present games that the home market cannot handle. Again, I give you DDR. Focus on games that are completely impossible, at the present time, to do at home. DDR did that. A huge eight player fighting game would do that. Daytona's multi-racer network did that. Light gun games do that, for the most part, since the atmosphere is different, which is why arcade light gun games are still being made I suppose.
Instead of trying to increment the quality of competing fighters and racers, how about making them more of an arcade experience? Instead of competing with each other, compete directly with the home market. Gyroscoping shooting games. Masive light gun games. Massive fighting games, with huge screens. Networked arcade games, particularly shooting and driving. And, of course, DDR started this trend, so improve upon that some more.
Make arcades a place to go to to play games you can't play at home. Apart from DDR, arcades haven't been like that for a very, very long time.
(sorry if this rambles a bit, it was originally brainstormed on IRC and reformatted for this post)
"In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, 'Make us your slaves, but feed us.'" -Dostoevsky
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?
Oh great I can see it now - Sonic the Hedgehog replacing the frickin' Paperclip in MS Office.
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.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
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?
Microsoft sure would do a good move for themselves if they bought Sega, and launched X-Box2 as Sega in Japan.
That plus all the games. If Microsoft do buy them, I don't think they would close them down, but rather make use of them.
But I am sure someone will stop it before it happens. Best chance for the Sega legacy to live on though.
Sega and Namco already have a long term relationship in a joint venture the two of them went together with Nintendo when they created the Triforce, which is an Arcade Board based on the Gamecube architecture.
This joint venture is not likely to break in the near future, because Nintendo is practically giving them access to a revenue stream using not only the hardware, but also with high-profile franchises such as F-Zero and Star Fox, in exchange of their development expertise. I think this is going to work great and could help to define how things are going to be in the future. (e.g. show executives how things are done right)
It's widely known that merging with Sammy, EA or M$ would actually bring Sega to the black sooner than merging with Namco, because even Namco is not on a very strong financial situation by itself. But Sega developers like Namco the better, because it would be the only way they could stay at the company doing things the way they like.
Meanwhile, Sammy, EA and M$ have the same problem: They don't actually need Sega's developers. They'd basically buy it for the trademarks, branding and IP because they have very different methods on game design, development and marketing.
Mostly every Sega team would be in danger of being disbanded. There are people with different skills, different approaches to gaming and trained in different pieces of hardware. A merger with any of these three companies can only result in the loss of this core philosophy. EA likes very short development cycles with very poor execution, M$ likes exclusivity and Sammy likes amusement machines.
Imagine if Rez, Panzer Dragoon, Shenmue and many other great games could never exist were Sega under any of these three companies' wings. A situation like this can really be an issue for any potential buyer, because it can also affect the buying price, and that's where Sega and Sammy disagreed.
I truly felt something was wrong with this merger when I first heard about it. I remembered another merger Sega planned with Bandai some years ago, which failed miserably, possibly because of the same reasons.
- Otaku no naka no otaku, otaking da!!!
Nintendo and Sega over the last 2 decades have built up the video games business and have got a lot of IP. Rather than Namco, EA and Microsoft get their hands on Sega brand, characters and classics game titles only to release sequels, it would be fitting if Nintendo would move in for the IP atleast. Combining characters and concepts between Nintendo and Sega titles would allow Nintendo to possess a full set of genre titles. Plus it always opens the possibilities of Mario - Sonic adventures etc. The above is highly unlikely... but would be nice to see.
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.
Looks can be deceiving. Or CAN they?
From my observations, Sega and Nintendo share a very large, overlapping fanbase, which could make for great oppertunities, where it united.
I am under the impression that each is a very different company internally, but they do seem to aspire to a common goal, which is ground breaking game making. Could a company imploying Yu Suzuki, Yuji Naka and Shigeru Miyamoto work in your opinion?
Looks can be deceiving. Or CAN they?
Nintendo isn't going away, they're a strong company with a monopoly grasp on the handheld market.
Looks can be deceiving. Or CAN they?
I'm really not trying to troll, I swear. But I have to say that this discussion so far has been pretty painful to see.
Merging isn't like putting together a videogame! If Sega merged with Capcom, as one person suggested, it wouldn't result in all kinds of "Capcom Vs. Sonic" games! In fact, whichever company becomes the parent in any videogame company merger has very little effect on what kind of games get produced, except in the most basic risk-adjustment way.
See, the only synergies achieved in videogame company mergers that can't be achieved through regular partnerships (the ones that produce those "Capcom Vs. Marvel" type games) are publishing or high-level coding synergies. The companies almost always remain very independant, largely because all the intellectual property they all control is up for bid to the highest paying or most promising seller anyway.
So if you want to see Sega produce the coolest stuff possible, you'd better hope that it gets bought by someone like Microsoft, who's willing to throw tremendous amounts of money into somewhat risky ventures because they want complete and utter dominance, and NOT by some random other company that you happen to like!
Read jack phelps dot net
Please, people. Just look at his previous posts on slashdot. This guy hasn't worked for Sega.
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.
They have similar values?
1. Nintendo is conservative and family-oriented. Sega generally aims at an older audience. The "family" is the very principle audience for Ninendo (it has publicly admitted that), everything it does has to be appealing to this audience.
2. "they're both soley games companies" Well they still make hardware, but 2 different kinds of hardware with 2 very different philosophies. Nintendo's hardware is merely a plaform for them to sell their games, Nintendo's consoles are designed to be capable, but not particularly designed to compete at the hardware level (the SNES has a CPU half as fast as the Genesis which came 2 years before, the N64 used cartidges while the world had switched to CD-ROM). Sega's only remaining hardware business is in the arcade, a market that's important to Sega, and a market where its hardware has to be competetive.
3. Sega, first and foremost, is an arcade business. (They killed Dreamcast instead of their arcade division, didn't they?) Ninendo hasn't made an arcade game probably since the Donkey Kong series. The TriForce, once again, is merely a platform for Nintendo to sell games. Nintendo would've wanted no part in it if they were actually required to make arcade hardware as part of the deal.
4. "neither of them are afraid of trying new gaming genres out"? Only Sega is. Sega takes risks. It made some of the most original (but commerically lackluster) games like NiGHTS, Shenmue and Jet Set Radio. Nintendo just reharshes the same old franchises from over a decade ago like Zelda and Mario. Sure, every incarnation of them are well-executed and innovative in its own rights, but they're still limited by the original's theme and formula, and formula are exactly what they look like when compared to stuff like Shenmue and Jet Set Radio.
5. From what I understand, SoA (Sega of America) actually develops games for the US market (say, the Sega Sports Series), while NoA (Nintendo of America) is only resposnible for business and testing within the US market. The original Sega was also a result of a Japanese-American merger. In other words, Nintendo is a primarily Japanese company with typical Japanese values and practices, the domestic Japanese retail market will always come before any other. Other the other hand, Sega was conceived as a blend of east and west all the way from management to marketing, and it has always equally valued their Eastern and Western markets and targeted them respectively.
6. "With Shenmue, Sonic, Mario, Zelda and Sega Sports titles being GameCube exclusive." Well that's sure is good for Nintendo, but where's Sega's end of the bargain?
I guess I sound like a Nintendo basher. I do think Nintendo makes excellent games, and the GameCube is a well-designed piece of hardware: clean layout, low manufacturing cost, respectable performance. However, Nintendo is not the kind of company I'd like to see Sega merging with. Much of what makes Sega special will be lost as a result.
Sega and Nintendo are like Apple and Microsoft. They are 2 very different companies.