Sega to Axe 300 Jobs as Focus Turns to PC and Mobile

As a former simi Sega fanboy way back in the day, this saddens me. Since exiting the console biz, other than bringing lots of great gaming to the OGXBOX, they've drifted and drifted so far off course this I guess was the inevitable outcome.

For one thing, where oh where is the consoles versions of PSO2, I for one would have ate that stuff up?

For SW purposes and b/c I really do think this, they should have became a MS first party in the early 2000's. :P

Best of luck Sega and hope this turns things around for you and same for those getting the axe. :(

Anyhoo, thoughts?

The Story.

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http://www.gamespot.com/articles/sega-to-axe-300-jobs-as-focus-turns-to-pc-and-mobi/1100-6424996/

Sega to Axe 300 Jobs as Focus Turns to PC and Mobile

Restructuring underway, with San Francisco office to be relocated; Future of console games business unclear.

by Rob Crossley on January 30, 2015

A drastic and sweeping restructure is underway at Sega as the publisher attempts to "drastically improve profitability," with more than 300 jobs at risk, a headquarter relocation underway, and a new focus away from games consoles.

Sega issued a notice to investors on Friday explaining that it expects to make just $34 million in net profit by the end of the financial year; a nosedive in performance compared to the $260 million it made the year prior.

Around 300 staff are scheduled to be made redundant, while Sega's San Francisco headquarters will be relocated--likely by summer--to southern California.

The struggling publisher, which formed in the 1940s and shifted its business into video games by the late '80s, will also reposition its business to center it around "smartphone and PC online gaming."

Although drastic measures, Sega has been planning this shift in business since May 2014. To what extent this will further narrow its games console business is unclear. Sega's key releases of 2014 were Alien: Isolation, Rome 2 Total War, and Sonic Boom.

The corporation said: "SEGA has positioned Digital Games, particularly smartphone and PC online gaming, as a growth area and has determined to implement the following measures in order to constantly post profits by improving management efficiency while promptly promoting redistribution of management resources."

@SolidTy:

Ohhh mannn, such good gaming memories with SEGA... ye ole king of the arcade back in the day and home consoles, Genesis does what Nintendont. :P

Online PC gaming? That sucks. Hopefully TW: Warhammer won't turn out to be online only trash.

Well, their PC endevours liek Footaball Manager and Total War have been very sucessfull. Don't know much about their mobile front.

This seems to affect SOA and some of SOE. Their japanese output seems to be fine.

Anyway, how about that bayonetta and Vanquish on PC SEGA?

I suppose since I'm not PC gaming these days I forget about those titles and I know some love'em but what I don't know is how mnay. Do those titles sell really well and make good money for dev & pub?

Also, probably a good thought bring the other two to PC but I dunno the rights / ownership involved in the IP's.

Guess this means we can kiss goodbye to an Alien Isolation sequel.

Oh well, after Chronic Boom and ACM why should they be surprised that people have no faith in their AAA output?

So does that mean... no PSO2 in the west? :P

Apparently, I dunno, PSO2 could really suck for all I know but I've been needing mah PSO fix for years now and would have bought and played PSO2 had it came to consoles. :P

I'm surprised the forum isn't more taken aback by this. Probably partially because of the title of the thread and probably partially because Sega developed stuff (which to many includes Sonic Boom) mostly stinks.

But I've loved their published stuff. Binary Domain is the shit, Vanquish might not have seen daylight if not for them, Virtua Tennis still needs a modern release etc.

Then there's Atlus which is owned by Sega Sammy. I hope to fucking god they stay on handhelds and consoles. **** mobile games. This whole ordeal worries me because this generation just started and has lost one of consoles' most eclectic, notable publishers to the mobile and F2P market.

The four pillars that sega releases yearly is Aliens, Total War, Sonic, and Football manager. Three of those are major PC releases, and the only one that is console focused is sonic. Sonic hasn't been doing well now that its releasing only on the Wii U and 3DS. It's likely they'll can sonic at this point and focus on that kids show they are currently making.

@Blabadon:

Eh, dunno if this is what you referred to " topic title" but I assumed the whole title wouldn't fit - that'll teach me about ass u me ing,

Edited, it fits. " red face emoticon" :P

So Sega is basically dead right?

Most of Sega's best stuff is on the PC anyway. Hopefully they will still publish the good software they put on consoles, but they'll just put it on the PC.

Just sell your IPs Sega, you're quite clearly utterly useless at handling them yourselves. They never seem to listen to or cater to their fan-bases what so ever and they completely ignore their westerns fan-bases when it comes to games like Yakuza and PSO. They bought this utter annihilation upon themselves with nothing but sheer stupidity.

Capcom will be up next. They're going down a similar road by destroying their own IPs one after another with the most batty decisions ever. It make's me face palm just thinking about these two idiot companies. They had so much potential to be great and they threw all that potential away.

Gaming certainly has gone down the shitter since Microsoft threw their hat in the ring! :(

Quite the opposite munchkin, the VG industry grew by Billions since MS entered the console arena. Besides, Sega's woes have zero to do with anybody but Sega.

Interesting move on their part. I really don't know Sega's involvement in the PC market. All I know is they publish Total War and they kind of screwed over Creative Assembly with the last Total War game.

Just sell the Japanese business off to sony or something so Yakuza and Persona don't die. Then they can become a straight publisher.

Why did they even buy Atlus? If Sega goes down or forces them to make f2p crap, it's over for Atlus.

I don't know why but companies like Sega and Nintendo never seemed to learn how to evolve when new consoles came out every gen. They just seem so far behind everyone else. Is it because they stick with the same old people from the 80's and they never learned to code new games?

It seems the west hires younger and newer coders all the time and they release awesome games.

It seems the opposite to me. There are a lot more great games coming out of the east than there are from the west right now.

I worry for Atlus.

@Snugenz: SEGA will never recapture the magic of PSO again.

Sucks that Atlus was brought into their mess. It was baffling when it first was announced. Didn't Sega do something like this 3 or 4 years ago, where they publicly stated after some poor financial results they were going more towards mobile IP, PC, and "core IP's only? Then they go out and buy Atlus - and now we are right back to the same old story. Who exactly is in charge of this company LOL.

Hopefully Nintendo or Sony step up and do something here, such as offering to buy some of their IP's. That seems unlikely though, and Sega would probably be stubborn anyway and instead let those IP's go down with the ship.

It's almost as if Capcom and Sega only exist anymore to spite gamers. 90% of the decisions they make do nothing but disappoint and screw their own fans over - it's no coincidence they are failing.

Man, I really liked PSO2 but it became such a pain to reapply an english patch after every update.

So they admit there isn't much of incentive in making console games? That's sad.

OP, please point out that most of these layoffs are from their arcade business and won't effect SEGA's output in North America all that much.

You shouldn't. They're under SEGA Sammy sure but operate entirely independently.

meh sega garbage anyway

Good to hear.

Too bad for the employees, really. Selfishly, the news isn't too huge for me, those are my favorite two platforms.

First thing, SEGA SAMMY is not in trouble, they make money off their pachinko machines, and secondly, ATLUS acts as a separate entity from the ones that are being cut back. They're their own subsidiary and work independently. So if you're an ATLUS fanboy, don't worry, this doesn't concern you. Who this does concern is people like me that like SEGA developed arcade games such as Virtua Fighter, Outrun, After Burner, or console published games like Vanquish.

SEGA has been scaling back and shifting to digital distribution for a while now, and with the money sink that was Sonic Boom, it's not surprising that SOA took the biggest hit. It does make me sad though, because their office was right here in San Francisco.

Well considering how useless consoles are becoming they are dead in that market.... unless your a big publisher with s*itty glashy gun games you don't get far on consoles anymore.

as long as they dont get too involved in total war im not fussed. just pay the money and stay out of the way sega.

they have nothing of worth left on consoles and the cost of development on them is just not helping. im sure they will continue to beat the old hedgehog but that died a long time ago.

do they make much out of mobile? the only games they seem to produce that make an actual return are total war games (and i think total war warhammer will be really big...just dont go messing sega. CA know what they are doing.) and football manager.

Unfortunately, business reality makes this distinction meaningless. They are owned by Sega, which means that they have been ALLOWED to work independently. They are not an independent company. Sega could do whatever they wanted with them if things got desperate enough. Up to and including closing Atlus offices down, laying everyone off, selling their IP's piecemeal, whatever. This seems like it would be an incredibly stupid turn of events after buying the company, but it does happen in the corporate world.

Hopefully Atlus is small enough that they can just stay the course without being impacted. Either that, or Sega shops them around to a new buyer as a complete business unit. Please Sony or Nintendo step in LOL. I think most of us were hoping they would be the buyers when Atlus last needed "rescuing" from a bad corporate steward.

@MBirdy88: It's not a console vs PC issue. It's that Sega has been a shit developer since Dreamcast died. PC couldn't help that regardless of how much you worship it.

Console gaming is dying CONFIRMED Lolololol

PC wins again.

Around 300 staff are scheduled to be made redundant, while Sega's San Francisco office will be relocated--likely by summer--to southern California.

Sounds like it's mostly affecting Sega's offices here in the US. I wonder if the San Francisco office is actually going to move and combine with the Atlus USA offices down in Irvine.

If that ends up being the case, I'd be surprised they'd have to fire people. I can't imagine people living in such a nice city with such a strong reputation and regard for its tech industries and good paying tech jobs to an area that's much more rural, not as cultured, and just as expensive to live in without all the niceties; I imagine that they'd be lucky to retain anybody willing to make the move.

So frustrating that they have all those IPs and are doing nothing with them.

If MS was willing to throw away $2 Billion on Mine Craft I wonder if they would be willing to buy Sega or at Least buy Sega's IP. It would give MS an instant Library of games familiar to gamers. Sonic, Shinobi, Shining Force, Shenmue, Virtua Fighter, Phantasy Star, Sword of Vermilion, Jet Set Radio, Golden Axe, Yakuza, etc. Making it easier for MS to diversify while making amends with gamers by saving one of gamings beloved companies.

That is too bad and I had to wonder what will be the future of console games Sega holds.

NOoo!! I hope they don't completely exit the console business....I thought Alien sold well, so why would they make this move now. Oh well, no point in thinking about it, what's done is done.

You expected console gamers to buy bad Sonic games. This is what happens and it's honestly sad. They had alot of great ips

@deadline-zero0: Sega no longer owns Bayonetta as it was bought by Nintendo.

@SecretPolice:

Sad indeed. I was the sega kid in my neighborhood while almost everyone else had an NES then SNES. My brothers and I playing the first Madden, Lakers vs Celtics and so many classics on Genesis. I still have some of my Sega Master System cartridges. That would have been interesting if they had gone to second or first party for Xbox. But oh well.....

I would think Sega will become just a straight publisher now. Most of their games are just that now. Football Manager, Total War, Aliens, all developed by a third party, published by Sega.