NeoGAF

Special Report August 13, 2007, 11:45AM EST

Sega Goes Beyond Sonic

The video game maker has a plan to break into the top five. It involves moving past the pre-adolescent set with fantasy, speed, and violence

some quotes:

Sega, like other Japanese companies that have struggled to make inroads in the West, has been aggressively pursuing high-profile movie licenses. The licenses are part of a strategy aimed at diversifying Sega with more games for a wider variety of gaming platforms and audiences.

For a company best known for a quick-footed blue ball of fur named Sonic the Hedgehog, Sega is making some uncharacteristic acquisitions.

It is primed to release an adventure game based on The Golden Compass (...) The company also snatched up the licenses to four Marvel Comics characters—Iron Man, the Hulk, Captain America, and Thor—that have movies in development or under consideration. In addition, Sega is planning two new games based on 20th Century Fox's Alien movies.

In addition, next-generation gaming technology has increased development costs. Admits Sega of America President Simon Jeffery: "It only takes a couple of $20 million games to fail at market, and we're out of business."

Sega's successful line of football games was left out in the cold when Electronic Arts (ERTS) cut a deal with the National Football League and the NFL Players Association, giving the company exclusive rights to portray NFL players, teams, and stadiums. Sega's football games, which were considered high quality despite costing only $20, were left out in the cold.

When Simon Jeffery became president of Sega of America early the following year, the company had begun pursuing an aggressive global expansion strategy.

"It really was a paradigm shift at the top at Sega Sammy," Jeffery says. Although the Japanese old guard wanted to reenter the hardware business, he says, "There really had to be an absolute flushing out of that old way of thinking."

In the last two years, Sega has climbed from 11th to sixth place among third-party publishers in terms of games sold.

When Jeffery joined Sega, his first order of business was forging relationships with top development studios, something at which he was successful while president of game publisher LucasArts.

Jeffery is looking beyond Sonic, which he says is "an amazing recruitment vehicle" for younger gamers but "loses its cool factor when you get about 12 years old." To compensate, Sega has focused on developing games for more mature audiences. In one of its most violent games, Condemned: Criminal Origins, players solve a series of grisly murders while engaging in bloody hand-to-hand combat. A sequel is due out this holiday season.

Source
http://www.businessweek.com/innovate...813_964132.htm

Sonic lost his cool factor when he got shitty friends.

Originally Posted by Night_Trekker

Sonic lost his cool factor when he got shitty friends.

Thread end.

I say the same thing about Mario, but the sales consistently pwn me :lol

Sonic loses its cool factor when you get about 12 shit games

Originally Posted by Night_Trekker

Sonic lost his cool factor when he got shitty friends.

And when he opened his fucking mouth.

Seriously, they should never have given Sonic a voice, that just ruined it for me.

Originally Posted by pswii60

And when he opened his fucking mouth.

Seriously, they should never have given Sonic a voice, that just ruined it for me.

Also, when he started kissing humans

Furry defense force, ASSEMBLE!

Originally Posted by Night_Trekker

Sonic lost his cool factor when he got shitty friends.

Yep. Just Tails & Knuckles will do.

go back to 2d

somone post that GIF of that 12 year old princess kissing Sonic

Sonic would be plenty cool to older gamers as long as the games don't suck. Nice try, attempting to pin the downswing in popularity on an aging demographic, but if Sega was releasing games like Sonic 2 or Sonic & Knuckles or Sonic Adventure today, their mascot would be just as popular as he ever was.

And I cry inside at the idea of Sega seeing its path to success being through outsourced movie licenses. God, what happened to this company. People like Simon Jeffery certainly aren't helping.

Dear Sega,
Blaming your customers for your shitty games isn't the answer.

xoxo,
me

p.s. OUTRUN 2 PORT 4 360 PLZ. KTHX

Thats pretty much sad. Sega, how far you've fallen. :(

I'm appalled by the responses. Who didn't LOVE fishing with Big the Cat?

Can't argue with that.

Though...even people older than 12 could have fun playing the older Sonic games.

Now...well....

Let's just say you'd have to be....12 to enjoy them. Or am I insulting the intelligence of your average 12 year old? :D

Sega Europe needs to lead the way, they seem to have the best grip on reality these days.

"It really was a paradigm shift at the top at Sega Sammy," Jeffery says. Although the Japanese old guard wanted to reenter the hardware business

9/9/09 BELIE--

he says, "There really had to be an absolute flushing out of that old way of thinking."

:(

Man new Sega sucks so much. Make some good games for christ sakes.

Well he is right. Doesn't change the fact the biggest reason for Sonic's failure are the game quality. But Sonic RPG will change that.
Although I'm sad to hear they decided not to reenter the hardware market.

Originally Posted by PleoMax

Man new Sega sucks so much. Make some good games for christ sakes.

They do.

When Simon Jeffery became president of Sega of America early the following year, the company had begun pursuing an aggressive global expansion strategy.

"It really was a paradigm shift at the top at Sega Sammy," Jeffery says. Although the Japanese old guard wanted to reenter the hardware business, he says, "There really had to be an absolute flushing out of that old way of thinking."

Fuck SOA! seriously. >:(

Apparently, Sega still have no idea why they're mascot is now an industry turd. Will somebody get these people to fuckin' pay attention? At least once?

Originally Posted by Night_Trekker

Sonic lost his cool factor when he got shitty friends.

Bingo!

I always told this to my friends but they looked at me weird every time :lol

Makes me wish even more that Sammy would've ruled Sega with an iron fist. They might've failed spectacularly at the sales counter, but their output likely would've rivaled the best days on Dreamcast, Saturn and Genesis.

I like how the implications is:

Originally Posted by Sega Fucktard Execs

Let's use a black hedgehog and give him an Uzi. That'll bring back the cool factor for
the 12 year olds!

So you're "struggling for growth" in a market you once dominated, and your rebound plan includes pissing on the franchise that pushed you to that dominance in the first place?

I wish they'd launch another console just so they could crash out and sell off all their IPs to competent developers.

Sonic isn't cool to kids twelve or older?


Must have spent a lot of money on market research to figure that one out....:D

Sonic as a great 2D game never lost its cool factor (I just played through and loved the XBLA Version).

Sega why don't you revisit your FAILING Sonic strategy and release a brand new HD 2D Sonic, you would see a SHIT TON

Now that is scientific fact. There's no real 'evidence' for it but it is scientific fact

Originally Posted by Night_Trekker

Sonic lost his cool factor when he got shitty friends.

So true. I loved Sonic games and think the character can still appeal to older gamers who grew up playing the Genesis games.

Tails sounds like a pre school girl and all the extra characters totally ruin the true Sonic experience.

Too bad

"There really had to be an absolute flushing out of that old way of thinking."

went too far and became

"There really had to be an absolute flushing out of that old way of making good games."

Originally Posted by ethelred

Sonic would be plenty cool to older gamers as long as the games don't suck. Nice try, attempting to pin the downswing in popularity on an aging demographic, but if Sega was releasing games like Sonic 2 or Sonic & Knuckles or Sonic Adventure today, their mascot would be just as popular as he ever was.

And I cry inside at the idea of Sega seeing its path to success being through outsourced movie licenses. God, what happened to this company. People like Simon Jeffery certainly aren't helping.

.

As a publisher Sega has improved ten-fold. But as a developer they're nowhere near as good as they used to be.

Also if all their games suck nowadays why would anyone want a new system filled with them?

Originally Posted by PepsimanVsJoe

As a publisher Sega has improved ten-fold. But as a developer they're nowhere near as good as they used to be.

But some of their published games are made by colaborations with other teams or teams owned by them like the Medieval guys.
I'll admit they are still far from the old quality in-house titles but people tend to exagerate.
Hell even Sonic had good games, like Sonic Rivals or Secret Rings but they seem to be shadowed by the shityness of titles like Sonic 360.

One of the areas where Sega went wrong with the Sonic franchise was that...they kept trying to make the games appeal to the older crowd.

This is clearly evidenced by the increasing 'darker' stories and characters, the 'harder and edgier' soundtrack, and trying to escape the cartoony worlds of the originals in place of more photo-realistic settings and enemies. They became so frustrated by the reception they got from Sonic Adventure 2, Shadow, and Sonic Heroes that they did the exact OPPOSTIE of what they should have done when they made STH 360....they went and made it even DARKER.

It's almost like somebody over there at Sega is saying to themselves, "Hmm...so SA2 wasn't 'adult' enough for you? Welllll, how about now? No?? OK, how about now??? Here, we'll even throw in some fucking guns! You little babies like to SHOOT SHIT, don't ya??? Gah, you still don't like it???? GOD Damn, what will it take for you people to like our games!??"

What they've failed to realize that part of the reason people loved the Sonic games in the 16-bit era, is because they had a lot of childlike charm. Yeah, the colors and the cartoony stuff doesn't appeal to your average Halo or Madden fan. But that's not your audience, Sega. Stop trying to appeal to Halo and Final Fantasy fans and start thinking about what made the original games so appealing in the first place.

Too childish, you say? Tell that to Nintendo...who's Mario franchise has been consistently selling millions of copies of each game, despite being...childish.


Oh, all that, plus the games themselves are a buggy mess. Put more time and effort into your games, Sega.

Looks like SOJ and SOA are still fighting to this day, but this time it`s SOA who are in charge!

Sonic lost his "cool factor" way before 12 years.

When you turn 12 and Sonic loses his coolness, Shadow's there to pick up the slack.

*sigh... I had a dream that had SEGA went out of business. The way things are going I wouldn't be surprise if that really happens.

I hate most of those comments, especially the Sonic loses its cool after 12. Honestly, that's full of crap. All they need to do is provide a brilliant Sonic game - that's all.

Anyhow, I have more comments but I'm sure all of you already know them anyway as it's the same old rubbish we've been ranting on for years.

I read that as "Sonic lost it's cool factor about 12 years ago".

Seems bout right.

Originally Posted by Gowans007

Sonic as a great 2D game never lost its cool factor (I just played through and loved the XBLA Version).

Sega why don't you revisit your FAILING Sonic strategy and release a brand new HD 2D Sonic, you would see a SHIT TON

Now that is scientific fact. There's no real 'evidence' for it but it is scientific fact

SEGA/DIMPS couldn`t make a good 2D Sonic to save their lives :(

With the way the market is right now, with the Wii crushing both Sony and Microsoft, and the saturation of speed and violence on the 360's increasingly leveled userbase, I don't think it's quite a smart decision, Sega.

Originally Posted by Nuclear Muffin

SEGA/DIMPS couldn`t make a good 2D Sonic to save their lives :(

Sonic Rush disagrees with you.

Somewhere in England Commander Zorg is crying.

NVM Sonic and 12 year oldgirls, this is the funny part:

The venerable video game publisher, which has been knocked around the industry like a character in a video game, is tired of being relegated to the second tier. Sega is determined to break into the top five of video game publishers in the next year. That means more than doubling the company's revenue in the midst of what could be one of the most competitive holiday gaming seasons in recent memory.

With Nights 2 and Olympics vs...everything else everyone else has? Okay Sega.

Originally Posted by PepsimanVsJoe

Also if all their games suck nowadays why would anyone want a new system filled with them?

It's probably way to late to do this, but still.

For some reason Sega seems to need it's own platform to bring out the best in them.
After the DreamCast was discontinued there were many voices inside Sega of Japan speaking out of this.
Lots of developers noting that having their own hardware gave them the drive to produce the best games they possibly could, and then some.
Saying that since the death of DreamCast the mood had changed dramatically in their various teams.

Many of these people probably left Sega many years ago already, so like I said, it's probably way to late for a revival.
Yet, still I keep hoping for this.

The way things are going now, I wouldn't even mind if they actually went out of business...
They simply aren't the same company they were 10 years ago. :(

Maybe new Sonic games lose their cool at 12, but Sonic 3 & Knuckles (Both parts of which came out when I was 13) is still awesome. Will they EVER figure that out?

I don't think there's anyone at Sega who can make a good 2D Sonic. Even if they could it would fail horribly sales-wise. The community that Sega weaned on anime-esque plots with Sonic getting stabbed to death and kissing princesses just wouldn't be able to take to a Sonic game in the vein of 1/2/CD/etc.

A lot of what made Sega great back in the day was due to them having a huge amount of talent under one roof. Of course today they've all dispersed and whatever brilliant teams Sega has left(Overworks for example) are left sitting on their hands. I can't imagine Sega ever going back because there's no value in it. For not pleasing their original fanbase Sega has managed to jump from 11th to 6th in terms of third party games sold. I see no reason to go back.

Originally Posted by angelfly

Sonic Rush disagrees with you.

Just because it's better than the Advance games doesn't make it a good 2D Sonic.

Sega loses its cool factor when they make shitty games. How fucking dare you ruin Sonic.

give sonic some fancy weapons, a cool spaceship, a sarcastic robot sidekick and a funny outrageous storyline. then it'll be cool to 12 year olds....oh wait, thats Ratchet and Clank.