Sega Profits Surge On Arcade Titles, Despite EA Sports Domination

Thanks to Reuters for their story revealing Sega's profits jumped 485 percent for the first half of the fiscal year, to 5.93 billion yen ($54.53 million), largely due "to strong sales of its [Japanese] arcade game machines such as [popular crane game] 'UFO Catcher 7' and [intriguing arcade-based CCG] 'The Key of Avalon'." Elsewhere, Sega's consumer division "...posted an operating loss of 1.8 billion yen, but it was less than it expected because of solid sales of its soccer simulation and car racing games." However, the company "...trimmed its projection of key U.S. sports games to 1.73 million from 2.6 million units", still dogged by Electronic Arts' domination of the genre, as the president said: "We need to carefully plan how to compete with EA in terms of marketing, but we believe our games can win more market share because of their high quality."

Comments

I'm ready to jump the EA ship.

[saden1]

They can have me as a customer if their sports titles are playable online and are free. I am so fucking pissed of at EA about Madden that I'll never purchase another. I mean, they could have at least given users the ability to setup their own servers sorta like in most first person games. It seems everyone is trying to milk consumers by jumping on this whole subscription based bullshit.

Re:I'm ready to jump the EA ship.

[Babbster]

The Sega Sports (titled ESPN this year) titles on PS2 do indeed have free online play. On Xbox, of course, they require the Xbox Live subscription, though at least that covers every other Xbox Live game. Unfortunately, Sega isn't doing PC sports so if that's the way you play you're out of luck - as far as I know, Madden's the only full-featured PC football game in town these days.

On the unfortunate side, on the PS2 Sega is apparently mimicking EA's policy of not allowing online play of older games once new versions come out. I suspect that Sega figures they can't compete yearly with EA if they don't follow the same upgrade/online policy. AFAIK, Xbox Live policy prevents companies from doing this to customers (one of the big sticking points with getting EA on board with XBL).

In summary, EA is evil...they make some good games and I'm too wimpy to boycott (just bought SSX3 - friggin' fabulous), but they're evil. Sega is less evil but they're not above being evil if EA's evil puts them at a competitive disadvantage. :)

Re:I'm ready to jump the EA ship.

[DarkZero]

On the unfortunate side, on the PS2 Sega is apparently mimicking EA's policy of not allowing online play of older games once new versions come out. I suspect that Sega figures they can't compete yearly with EA if they don't follow the same upgrade/online policy. AFAIK, Xbox Live policy prevents companies from doing this to customers (one of the big sticking points with getting EA on board with XBL).

Considering that Sega has been on the rocks financially since a year or so before the Dreamcast ceased production, isn't it likely that Sega is just moving the older servers over to the new games because they can't afford to maintain a larger and larger number of servers every year? They can't risk running out of servers (or coming anywhere near that) because it would immediately crush their franchises, so if they wanted to have full support for older versions of all of their software, then they would have to add more and more servers every year as a precaution, which would directly cut into their already lackluster profits. Sega has tried to be really nice about this and kept the Dreamcast SegaNet servers up for long after both the system and its games were no longer being produced, so I don't think you can really lump them in with EA, who is turning a profit and has some of the largest resources in the gaming industry outside of Microsoft or Sony, but is still screwing you over.

Re:I'm ready to jump the EA ship.

[Babbster]

These companies can use the "cost of server" excuse if they want, but I don't buy it. The games aren't hosted on remote servers such as those available for games like Half-Life, Unreal Tournament, Battlefield 1942 and the like. All they're truly providing for their sports games is matchmaking, which doesn't exactly require an Everquest-type server farm. Even supporting just two years worth of the game would be a pretty big step toward satisfying customers. Then again, if that's too odious for these poor, struggling companies (sarcasm aimed primarily at EA) then why don't they put in an option to simply enter an IP address to hook up to a remote game? That would require ZERO participation by Sega/EA and could generate some goodwill amongst customers - especially those customers who might have thought they would get some decent online value out of a purchase they might have made just a couple of months before the online capability was negated.

As for feeling charitable toward Sega in light of their financial troubles, if they can't make money on their sports franchises then I say get out of the business. I'm not in the habit of feeling empathy for the stupid decisions of companies, even companies like Sega which have satisfied me in the past. I don't have a sense of loyalty towards companies from which I purchase products or services, especially if I think they're looking to screw me on the back end.

Then again, it's moot since I do my online console playing on Xbox Live which doesn't [yet] disable services for older game versions.

ESPN NHL Hockey NHL 2004

[Man In Black]

Speaking as a big hockey fan, EA's hockey games in recent years have totally sucked. NHL 99 was the last GOOD one in my opinion... they just keep degenerating into arcade games rather than accurate sports games... I want a realistic hockey game, even if that means trying to beat the trap and playing suffocating defense. If I wanted arcade hockey, I'd go play Blades of Steel or Hit The Ice. NHL 2003 with it's commentary that would insult the player was the worst.

I don't have a lot of experience with EA's other sports games, but if this is how the rest of them are coming along, then I really wish Sega luck. At least they have the guts to make a game that's aimed at the fans.

Re:ESPN NHL Hockey NHL 2004

[Hedonist123]

The EA and ESPN Hockey games were made for two totally different types of hockey fan, and I must say that both of them hit their mark. ESPN Hockey is absolutely amazing in the strategy involved, but not all hockey fans will appreciate that. Some people just want to blaze down the ice and put the puck in the net. That's what EA is there for. I personally opted for both, because I'm a huge hockey fan and when I'm in different moods I'll play the different versions of the game.

And hey, I didn't mind the commentary in NHL 2003. In fact, my roommates and I have played the game dang near religiously for about the last year and suprisingly I still hear new comments that make me laugh. I don't think anything said is too incredibly insulting to the players. Anything in particular piss you off? The worst I could think of is making fun of hits or saying, "Oh, look at Mr. Fancy Pants." Neither one really made me want to write in, though.

hed.

ESPN vs Madden

[derrickh]

The Sega rep is right. They make better games than EA but the marketing and name recognition of Madden (which somehow filters to the rest of their sports line) is overpowering. If Sega is going to compete, they need to ramp up advertising.

D

Sega's basketball is easily the best

[ianscot]

Since before the demise of the Dreamcast, NBA2k[-2-3] has been well better than the EA NABLive series.

EA's play testers must not even watch real ball. This year's new version, judging by the reviews, lets you make either layups or three, but there's next to no middle jumper game at all. Serious play balance problems.

The Sega series also has had better "franchise" modes, though those break down in any game after a couple of seasons, either way.

Re:Sega's basketball is easily the best

[Acidic_Diarrhea]

I'm currently in 2009 in this year's Madden with my franchise and haven't experienced any problems whatsoever. On the other hand, Sega's World Series Baseball 2K3 gave me complete hardware lockups after 3 or 4 seasons numerous times. Everything was great about WSB 2K3 except for this problem so I've got my fingers crossed for next year.

Re:Sega's basketball is easily the best

[nus105]

This is even an understatement- NBA Live is horrible. NBA 2kX (ESPN NBA now I guess) is great. The issue is (as a previous post about the hockey games says) arcade vs. simulation- but NBA Live tries to pass itself off as an acceptable simulation. Not even close- it's like NBA Jam without fire. I mean, Sega's NBA has its flaws- after playing for a long time you'll inevitably learn to take advantage of the AI, but that's inevitable (until the machines take over). At least after that the mutliplayer is still worthwhile- the gameplay is deeper than just taking your franchise player to the hole every time you come down the court.

About the middle jumper- there's not a lot of middle jumper left in the real NBA either (jk- sort of)

Initial D

[AlexMax2742]

Anyone else play Initial D? It is quite possibly the most fun SEGA racing game ever made. Only problem is that it's rather rare, as the machine itself is expensive as all get out...up there with Beatmania IIDX in terms of price. Not to mention the fact that the flatscreen deluxe version of Initial D costs even more. My arcade is lucky enough to have two v1 machines in their standard cabinets and two v2 machines in deluxe cabinets, but I'm sure it's the only place like it in the southeast..

Now all I have to do is wait for Initial D : Special Stage to be released stateside....I hope they add iLink support or 2 player or else I'm going to be extremely pissed.

Re:Initial D

[Anonymous Coward]

i.Link is not supported on the PS2 any more. The port is removed from the newest PS2s coming off the assembly line and Sony licensees can't release any new code that uses it.

Initial D us version?

[Hadlock]

Considering how unbelievably popular initial D was in sales, maybe managment will see fit to send us a copy stateside? Anyone heard any rumors along those lines?