Sega to downsize, axe certain games

[Red Cap]

If they advertised their fucking games to begin with, they wouldn't be in this trouble. They have interesting and unique IPs and yet they do nothing to advertise them. I didn't even see any ads for Vanquish or Binary Domain yet when Sonic Colors and Generations were released, it was all day, everyday.

That's just the thing, it's Sonic the Hedgehog. It would be dumb of them NOT to pour all their money into advertising the hell out of those two games, especially Generations since it was his 20th anniversary.

But yeah, SEGA's kinda bad at advertising their other games. I didn't even know Binary Domain was a SEGA game for a long while.

Edited March 31, 2012 by Red Cap-Blue Spikes

[Badnik Mechanic]

Heres one for you.

I sometimes watch videos from a youtube user called 'the happy console gamer' & 'Gamester81' Last year he went to PAX along with a few other people and they ended up at the Sega booth. They played the games that were on offer and being advertised... but they also played Aliens Infestation, they were blown away by how good it was, even back when it was in development it was a really awesome game.

...So why on earth didn't Sega even advertise that it would be at PAX? They even commented on this in their video, there was no advertising for Aliens Infestation anywhere.

Now Aliens Infestation did pretty well critically, it got a lot of very positive press right up until it's release, some went as far to say it's one of the best games on the DS, and others said it was 'the last great DS game.'

....anyone remember seeing an advert for this? I sure as hell don't, in fact for the sake of this post I had to check it had been released in Europe since I wasn't sure. Turns out it's been released over here for a long time now. So if Aliens, which is one of their key franchises not getting any advertising, what chance did any other game have?

That's just the thing, it's Sonic the Hedgehog. It would be dumb of them NOT to pour all their money into advertising the hell out of those two games, especially Generations since it was his 20th anniversary

Yes but it's equally dumb not advertising anything else in your existing catalogue. If I really try, I can only think of one other game which Sega makes that gets a lot of advertising... that being Virtua Tennis. And the only reason I know that game is out is due to the big deal they made in Playstation Home (you could win a Virtua Tennis apartment).

House of the Dead 3 & 4 recently got released on the PSN... but had it not been for the playstation blog nobody would have even been aware of this until release day.

Sega still havn't even announced that you can download those Sonic CD themes off the playstation store! And we didn't even know Sonic Heroes was going on the PSN until we happened to log into it and discover that it was randomly added.

[blackherox]

I really hope this doesn't mean that Yakuza 5 gets cancelled.

[Barry the Nomad]

Restating what I wrote at SEGAbits, I don't think it's doom and gloom:

I did some reflecting, lots of deep-in-thought walks by bodies of water, and came to the conclusion that this was a long time coming.

I thought back to the past four years and realized that the only games I truly enjoyed, and looked forward to, were either (A) major IPs or (B ) new or rereleased digital titles. Of course, there were a few new IPs (Bayonetta, Rise of Nightmares, Vanquish) but in the end Bayonetta was the only title I can say I can't live without.

2010 had Sonic Colors (established IP), Yakuza 3 (ditto) and Bayonetta (new IP). Digital titles included Sonic 4 and the first few Dreamcast collection titles. Now these didn't get praise from fans, but Sonic 4 sold really well, as did Sonic Adventure.

2011's best titles were Sonic Generations (established IP), Yakuza 4 (ditto), Shogun 2 (ditto), Virtua Tennis 4 (ditto), Football Manager 2012 (ditto) Digital titles were amazing: Guardian Heroes, Daytona USA, Space Channel 5 Part 2, Renegade Ops and Sonic CD. The black sheep was Shinobi, which should have been an XBLA/PSN release in my opinion.

So really, SEGA's "new direction" in 2012 is what they did in 2011 but with all the fat trimmed. I do really really hope to see Rhythm Thief and Anarchy Reigns released, if only because they put so much money into them and the releases were so soon. Binary Domain is an odd title, and given SEGA's direction games like that might fall by the wayside in the future. However, given its a Nagoshi game, and he's in the position he's in, I don't know. We'll have to wait and see.

So aside from the questionable Rhythm Thief and Anarchy Reigns, what does 2012 promise? A slew of digital titles: Virtua Fighter 5, JSR, Sonic 4 Episode 2, Hell Yeah!, more Dreamcast Collection titles (Shenmue? Skies? SA2?). On the physical release front: Aliens Colonial Marines, SASASR2(?), PSO2, a Wii U Sonic title(?).I don't know, I'm getting hopeful again. Nearly all the titles I'm excited for are still within SEGA's "new" direction, which like I said is a lot like 2011's direction streamlined.

Edited March 31, 2012 by Barry the Nomad

[The future]

They need to collaborate with other companies more, like F Zero for the Gamecube, and make the other companies do the advertising. And make a Streets of Rage revival. If there was a time to do it, it would be now.

[Kiah]

This is sad news, but by no means is this a surprise. For quite some time Sega has made some bad decisions and it has proved to be costly, most recently with them losing nearly 86 million dollars. I agree that the advertising, or lack there of, has really hurt Sega over the years, leading to lost potential of sales by not getting their products out there.

I'm sorry to hear about those in the QA department that lost their jobs, my sympathies to them. It is never a good thing to hear when someone, let alone a group of people lose their jobs so suddenly.

I also feel bad about the fans of the franchises that will be getting cut off. That just sucks to see a franchise you enjoyed disappear, although I understand where Sega is coming from in doing so.

On a positive note, I'm glad to hear that Sonic is safe. Hopefully these changes will provide opportunites to make the series better. Even though the past few games have been good for the most part, there is still room to do even better, to be great even.

Overall I hope these decisions and drastic changes will help Sega get out of the financial mess that they are currently in and make a full recovery.

[turbojet]

While I can understand the unusual case of Sega not bothering to market Vanquish and Binary Domain on account of it being some incredibly easy sells for the mainstream market, expansive advertising campaigns on the grounds of the popular creator's last title bombing because of lack of such is never a surefire guarantee for a title's well being, no matter how much the campaign will warp and sidestep some of it's shortcomings in the eyes of a mainstream crowd.

I am not expecting expansive advertising campaigns. I am expecting an advertising campaign of a sort which I haven't seen out of Sega for any game of theirs except for Sonic. Assassin's Creed did not have the hype it did since it was a completely new IP. They had full blown pages and ads on IGN, Gamespot, and other gaming sites and magazines dedicated to the game as if it were Metal Gear Solid 4. When released, the game was average to great at best, but it sold well mainly because of the advertising. Final Fantasy VII is the textbook example how advertising can make games. If they are selling a game, they could make the attempt at at least marketing it. Alpha Protocol may have been shit, but they could have at least gave it a shot.

But to be fair, Sonic IS Sega's official mascot and their symbol so, it makes sense Sonic was used in the progressive commercial. If it was Nintendo, you really think a character like Kirby will be used in a progressive commercial ahead of Mario?

That's just the thing, it's Sonic the Hedgehog. It would be dumb of them NOT to pour all their money into advertising the hell out of those two games, especially Generations since it was his 20th anniversary.

The thing is that they focus on nothing, but Sonic. I have not seen any advertisement for Anarchy Reigns. No promotion on any site. Nothing. Zilch. Nada. When Sonic is starring in a Go-Cart game featuring other Sega characters, the advertised the shit out of that.I realize that Sonic is the mascot, but come on. Give other IPs a chance. I can't tell you how many IPs Sega has, had, or would have had if they made a concentrated effort at trying to market these games. Vanquish had no excuse. There was literally no competition for it at the time.

[Conando]

Fact of the matter is, if they spent even a fraction of what they spend on Sonic advertisements for other games, they would at least sell. They don't even do that, so there's no surprise that nothing but Sonic and Total War sell.

[Arle985]

I really hope this doesn't mean that Yakuza 5 gets cancelled.

I also hope that Super Monkey Ball Banana Splitz doesn't get canned. That game's one of the main reasons why I'm getting a Vita someday.

[HunterTSF]

Oh hey, guys! I originally wrote a longer reply to this thing, lost it, and only just now got to retyping it. Better late than never, I guess. Anywho, here are my two cents on just exactly what actions on SEGA's behalf put their overseas divisions into this horrid bit of a mess that they are in now.

3. SEGA of Japan doesn't port their immensely successful arcade titles to consoles.

lolque? Now, this may sound like it's coming completely out of left field, but SEGA is completely dominating the arcade scene in Japan. A matter of fact, if you were to check out their Japanese homepage, you'd be have to literally sift through their supermassive collection of arcade titles before you even found their console outings. Why, have any of you ever heard of a third-person shooter by the name of Border Break?

I better be able to play as a giant Egg Pawn, SEGA.

This game has got it all! It's got fast-paced shooting action! It's got giant robots! It's got a fleshed-out backstory and a huge fanbase...it has everything! Well, that is, except a console version. YouTube user Bangcat vocalized their dismay regarding this pretty well, so I'll just post it here:

Sega you finally have some must play games out again, yet you cut yourself short by not bringing any intent of putting this on consoles nor a US release.

Till you pull some good moves, like wrestling this into the US or consoles, you're glory days are done. They're sitting right in your hands, Sega, especially this one.

Wise up, Sega. Let yourself be a contender on the global market again.

Given the nature of the game (it's a online multiplayer shooter with giant robots and explosions with some pretty solid gameplay), it'd probably do pretty great with overseas markets, but seeing as it doesn't even have a console version to localize combined with the fact that arcade machines are a dying platform over here the chances of us seeing this outside of Japan are around <0%. SoJ, acknowledge the home gaming market. But hey, even if they did make a console version it wouldn't make a difference because...

2. SEGA doesn't localize their shit.

Here in the US, SEGA is known primarily for one thing - Sonic the Hedgehog. In Japan, they're known for 99 things and a hedgehog ain't one. Here's a mosaic of over forty games that weren't localized in the past four years:

Holy shit, is that English of the Dead?!

Okay, we could probably do without the shovelware, Japanese sports games, and hiragana practice. Instead, let's just focus on two branches of the higher quality titles in particular.

I'd throw my money at them. All of them. Okay, maybe only the three in the upper left. But still.

2A) SEGA is too afraid to bring their new Japanese IPs overseas...

Yes, we are getting Binary Domain, we did get Vanquish, and we did get The Conduit. But guess who they were made for? Us. Now, let's tackle the franchises that never even made it overseas (so we're not counting the mighty fine NIS America's localization of their Sakura Wars or Bleach titles). They've got loads of them, ranging from the totally insane time-travelling-dragon-slaying and flower-eradicating two-parter RPG series that is 7th Dragon, to the pew-pew-pew'ing and whoosh-whoosh'ing of the mecha fighter Cyber Troopers Virtual-On Force, or even the hacking-and-slashing samurai action of the newly-released Samurai & Dragons for the Vita. Yakuza even continues to branch off in new directions with two different ongoing spin-offs, an action-adventure and a beat-'em-up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiQvigAnSto

Americans only play gritty cardboard brown first person shooters though, so we're not localizing it.

7th Dragon 2020 and Samurai & Dragons have come out less than a year ago, and there is still still no signs whatsoever of localization for either. For whatever reason, despite these titles being well-received in Japan and Western fans having shown an interest in all three games, they haven't been localized. If Konami can localize something as ridiculous as

, there are no excuses. Now, I could understand a company being a bit iffy about introducing new IPs to a brand new audience (doesn't stop NISA, Atlus, Aksys, or Xseed though. :v), but then why do you...

2B) ...but when they do, they almost immediately give up on it.

...completely withdraw any and all support for the select few series that you do decide to port over to begin with? Cases in point, Valkyria Chronicles and Shining. Valkyria Chronicles, while I presume just about everybody around here is at least somewhat familiar with, started losing support from SoA with the very first title. It quickly became neglected soon after release, not receiving the various Trophy updates or various PSN perks of its Japanese counterpart, and despite the sequel being miraculously localized, the third instalment never even made it overseas. Which is a darn shame; Sega goes through the hassle of localizing it, receiving loving and supporting fans along the way, only to let it shrivel up and die due to neglect on their behalf.

Same goes for Shining. Do you remember the last Shining title that was localized? Hint hint. It was for the PlayStation 2. We haven't seen a Puyo Puyo game since 2004. But hey, even if these titles were localized, it wouldn't matter because...

1. Sega of America DOES NOT PROMOTE THEIR GAMES.

*&^%$#@!

Everybody else has hit the nail on the head here. Sega simply does not bother to advertise ANYTHING that is not Sonic. Did you know that Yakuza: Dead Souls was released less than a month ago? No? Well, neither did I! I have seen more ads for shoddily-constructed Facebook shovelware titles than I have of Yakuza. Despite being an instantly-recognizable giant within the gaming industry, smaller teams like Aksys Games manage to build up more hype amongst the gaming community.

Here's something to consider: Virtua Fighter 5.

Virtua Fighter 5 is a fighting game. Hotcake salesmen remain perplexed as to how games like Street Fighter X Tekken, Soul Calibur V, and BlazBlue: Continuum Shift EXTEND are flying off the shelves at an exponential rate. Fighting games are so immensely popular right now that it's not even funny. I did not even know that Virtua Fighter 5 was even out yet until I looked it up. It's old now, but there's actually a new flashy redux in the works by the name of Final Showdown that SoA hasn't even bothered to flaunt around yet.

That is how bad their marketing team is. I swear, they could find a way to make Call of Duty not sell if they acquired the publishing license. Above all, Sega needs to fix this part stat. They can adress points 2 and 3 later, but they will mean absolutely nothing until they learn how to market their products.

Edited April 11, 2012 by HunterTSF

[Vec]

I though Football Manager was one of the good sellers from Sega...why is it on that last pic?

[HunterTSF]

oh my god i just typed all of that and the only thing they noticed was that crush 3d glitched out and got replaced with football manager 2012 :v

Okay. Gonna go defend Google Picasa's decision and say that despite its high sales (...in Europe, presumably. I'm pretty sure the only people in the U.S. who bought it were those looking for the Team Fortress 2 promotional items.), it got absolutely no advertisements here in America outside of Steam. Which is understandable, given how unpopular soccer is over here. Looking at YouTube, it's all the rage in the UK though.

Interestingly enough though, SEGA makes quite a sum of money from these licensed sports titles. In Japan, they've got the licenses to both the major baseball and soccer leagues. I'm curious as to how much revenue they get from these sports games alone.

Edited April 11, 2012 by HunterTSF

[Badnik Mechanic]

So aparently... Binary Domain barely sold 20,000 copies during the entire month of march over both the ps3 and Xbox 360.

Joystiq has decided to compare it to Mass Effect 3's launch... whilst you may roll your eyes a tad... it does bring up one or two interesting points that have been made here already.

1: Where was the advertising for this game?

2: Mass effect 3 gave you DLC with almost everything you bought, Binary Domain? Well... you had to pre-order if from Zavvi to get a weapon pack.... in Japan they got extra Yazkua characters.. ... ... and none of this is on the general PSN/XBL service to buy yet.

Now I doubt the DLC is that big of a a factor for this game... but then I think about other Sega Games like Generations.

Why the fuck are we still waiting for Casino night to go on public sale here in the west?

Full article here.

[Dobkeratops]

Comparing a new IP from a niche development team (in the west) to the third and final entry on a very successful series by Bioware that's backed up by EA's marketing departments seems like the kind of quality "journalism" I'd expect from Joystiq indeed.

BD was, sad as it may seem, always destined to bomb. Not uncommon at all for good products to perform badly, the gaming audience in general simply does not deserve half of what they get. Too bad, 'cause from what I played so far it's exceptionally nice and brimming with attention to detail.

Also it probably has an ending.

[HunterTSF]

Binary Domain is out already?

Oh come freaking on.

Well. Better go buy it now then... but seriously, this sale isn't being made on Sega's marketing team's behalf. Ads. They're how I found Warp and countless other relatively obscure games I wasn't aware of. They work.

Edited April 14, 2012 by HunterTSF

[Marcello]

When did Binary Domain come out?

[Carbo]

When did Binary Domain come out?

Two months ago.

[Blue Blood]

Two months ago.

Exactly.

I really don't understand why SEGA hasn't put more effort into marketing it's games. Just... why?!

[Scar]

Hopefully, the people SEGA laid off where the fuckwits in the marketing department.

In all seriousness, I hope those who were/are going to be laid off, find a new job and whatnot.

But seriously, it doesn't take a genius to realise that games without marketing don't sell. This is a basic principle of business. Perhaps we should send a colossal influx of emails (from the Sonic fanbase AND elsewhere) telling them to market games other than Sonic the Hedgehog.

Everyone knows about Sonic, the name is recognisable. But nobody knows about Binary Domain, and people aren't going to look around for it. So SHOW IT TO THEM. Make them interested in it.

[turbojet]

Two months ago.

The fuck!

I did not see one goddamn ad. Hogfather and Shadster did more to advertise the game than Sega.

[MykonosFan]

The fuck!

I did not see one goddamn ad. Hogfather and Shadster did more to advertise the game than Sega.

This. I didn't even know it existed until I saw Hogfather raving about it on here recently.

[Badnik Mechanic]

The fuck!

I did not see one goddamn ad. Hogfather and Shadster did more to advertise the game than Sega.

[Arle985]

Two months ago.

This really shows just how bad SEGA is when it comes to advertising. They're about as bad as Namco Bandai.

[Kuzu]

Ya know I realized, even though Sega drive all of their attention towards Sonic, you ever notice how none of the spin offs or non mainstream titles of Sonic barely get any advertising? I didn't even know Rush existed until I saw it on a shelf in gamestop, and I remember seeing not a single advert for it as well as for its sequel......yeah Sega are on life support as this point...which means they're going to be whoring out Sonic like there's no tomorrow.

[HunterTSF]

Hrm. Well, here's something that's worth pondering:

What if SoA did die? Would that even be a bad thing?

I understand that it would be a huge loss for those employed there, and I would be truley sorry for there lots, but the chances are SoJ's titles would end up being picked up by other publishers that actually knew what they were doing. Because come to think of it... even if they did fix their marketing strategies up a bit, it wouldn't change the fact that they're just really bad at publishing to begin with.

Look at their Yakuza releases, for example. The localizations are as bare-bones as it gets; there's not even any English voice acting in the game. They translated the text and that's it. That alone is a deterrent for a fair share of people; not everybody's going to put up with subtitles. Their handling of their Xbox Live and PlayStation Network is horrid at best. It's been how many months and we're still waiting for that Casino Night DLC? They've never had any decent incentives to pre-order any of their games. The collector's editions of the recent Sonic titles even managed to be European-exclusive.

I'd hate to say it, but SoA is doing such a poor job at publishing as a whole that they either need to completely rehaul their company from top to bottom or just close down their doors already just so these games can actually get the love and attention that they need from somebody else. Because as it stands, they sure as heck aren't getting the acknowledgement they deserve from the SoA of today.

Edited April 18, 2012 by HunterTSF