Search
Search
Sign on Options
Theme: [Light Selected] To Dark»

Sega to focus on Southeast Asian market

By Jonathan Leo Toyad

Sega's team manager of consoles sales announces new focus for the company; reveals Hong Kong and Taiwan make up 60 percent of Sega sales in the region.

After revealing the fate of the English version of Valkyria Chronicles III, Sega's team manager of consoles sales Hiroshi Seno announced during a recent New Era Games Day event in Singapore that the Japanese headquarters of Sega will now focus on the Southeast Asian market.

According to Seno, the countries prioritized for this focus are Hong Kong and Taiwan. The two markets account for 60 percent of the company's console business in the Asian region. Seno believes the new direction for Sega makes sense because "geographically, these two markets are closer to Japan and have expanded for the past few years."

"Our goal is to raise awareness of Sega [across the rest of Southeast Asia], and it helps that the region's economy is improved," Seno said. "The company sees promise and potential in the market."

According to Seno, the reason Sega hasn't pursued the Southeast Asian market before is due to Seno's own familiarity with the SEA market.

The Yakuza series is popular in Southeast Asia.

The Yakuza series is popular in Southeast Asia.

Seno further stated that the Yakuza games (Ryu Ga Gotoku in Japan) and Bayonetta are the most popular titles in the region. The reception for Ryu Ga Gotoku of the End, the latest in the former series, is "better than [Sega] expected," with the game "receiving extra orders [of the title]" from local retailers.

Concerning piracy issues in Southeast Asia, Seno said: "The problem is something the first-party companies need to work on together with the local authorities of the region."

He also said that with the increase in income, thanks to the Southeast Asia economy, people will start buying original games.

When asked about opening up shop in Southeast Asia, Seno said that Sega will not do so but will instead focus on looking for the best partners to work with while relying on current ones in the distribution field. Right now, the company is working together with New Era Games and Sony for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions respectively.

7 comments
  Livefyre
Newest | Oldest
hippiesanta
hippiesanta

Sega, I would like to remind you that South East Asia speaks English, don't try to sell games in Japanese language games over there

HollowNinja
HollowNinja

Screw you Sega, for not releasing Valkyria Chronicles in the US. And to a much, much lesser extent, I am rather upset by their refusal to release most of their games on the PC.

King-gamer
King-gamer

Piracy is still a huge issue in S.E.A. It's also not just an income problem. Improving? maybe, but not all are fortunate enough. Furthermore there's a lot of people here who has this whole mindset, "why buy expensive when you can get it cheap?" It's not a problem that will go away soon. Other than that. I remembered Nintendo tried setting up a small counter (Not even full store) in Malaysia before. Last time I checked, it's gone. Shows you how much success doing business there. The PC market in SEA is okay though. Blizzard's WoW, and many other PC games, especially those with online, seems to be most successful despite piracy. Also I want to say that one other huge problem is the lack of support from first parties like Sega said. There's no dedicated system here, nor are games sans PC games that are made specifically for this region. There are consoles and games dedicated to NA, Europe, Japan and Australia but not SEA. Because of this, Sony seems to be most successful here due to the lack of region lock in their systems. You can find Korean, Japanese and North American Wiis or Xbox as well as games. Things gets confusing, which eventually lead to homebrew and of course piracy. This lack of dedication also means there's no fixed price, and they are often more expensive than other regions. First parties need to make a system and games dedicated to the region otherwise there will be no success here. The remaining requires the help of the people and the local government to curb the piracy.

beny_pimpster
beny_pimpster

VALKYRIA CHRONICLES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Falcon084
Falcon084

I wonder if they include Australasia?

momoh410
momoh410

Oh yeah!! I hope more companies realize this.

Conversation powered by Livefyre

Hot Stories

Newsmakers

Featured Stories

Submit News

Got tips? Send them in!