HipHopGamer Hears from E3 Reps: Nintendo has Considered Purchasing SEGA

[Carbo]

It is entirely possible to kill off a division or at least sell off one if they're hurting companies (see; Clover Studios for the former and Rare for the latter), but it seems evident that Sega's holdings seem so negligible against the Sammy corporation as a whole that I don't think they're in any rush to get rid of them. A company like Sega probably wouldn't go for more than a couple dozen thousands as of this point if Sammy were to actually sell them.

On the whole subject, I'd personally I woudn't like Nintendo to buy Sega for one reason - they will always be a Generation behind in terms of Graphics. And I would hate that for Sonic games.

Sonic games as of late haven't exactly pushed the bar in terms of graphics and the one time it tried to bring significance (Unleashed), it became outdated the moment it was released. They don't exactly have the time and budget to be pushing them to insane fidelity so being Nintendo exclusive is only going to be a loss on that front if PC is always set to be a target platform for Sonic games from now on.

[Tornado]

Isn't it entirely possible to buy just the Amusment division? Despite going 3rd party and what not, and exclusive game deals with Microsoft, other divisions stayed the same.

It is possible to do so, and companies structured in such a way generally have their divisions operate mostly autonomously anyway. However, Sega's Consumer division (I assume you meant that one) may very well profit the entirety of the company even if the division itself posts losses. If Sega-Sammy has their pachinko/pachislot operations set up anything like SNK-Playmore does, and they do seem to:

Then having no-charge access to known and popular Sega franchises to stick on the pachinko machines that make them something like 80% of the corporate profit may very well offset the loss down to nothing. Granted, you can't keep operating a division like that, because if left unchecked it will always become an unsustainable drain on your finances (that's the issue Sony is facing right now, because they tried to ride out multiple divisions posting losses and focus only on the still profitable ones, and that blew up in their face when those breadwinners shrunk themselves); but as it is now while Sega is bleeding money it is only a recent occurrence.

I'd even argue that, depending on how integrated Sega's franchises are to Sammy's pachinko business, if the Sega as we know them consistently fail to improve their financial standing it may be a more likely option for Sega-Sammy to outright shutter Sega as a game development capacity and keep all of the franchises exclusively for gambling purposes than to sell the company off and lose those franchises to someone else. That's actually exactly what happened to SNK at the turn of the century (albeit SNK had a bait and switch done on them whereas Sega-Sammy seem to actually be trying to turn Sega around).

Edited December 10, 2012 by Tornado

[Woun]

HipHop Gamer sucks.

These stupid rumors I've ever had.

Nintendo didn't have enough to buy Sega. Guys.

SEGA of Japan - a big fair in Japan. No one is going to sell.

Including a lot of games and PSO2.

--

Edited December 10, 2012 by Woun

[JD!]

NO.

If this happened I would be floored. It would mean no more Sonic games on any platform that I use (which is mostly the PC) and I would with much sadness have to leave the fanbase and forget the franchise forever. So, fuck that.

Ditto. Apart from forgetting the franchise. I'd still play the games on older consoles and buy the Archie comic (as it's fairly removed from the games anyway) and Sonic collectables (but only those based on pre-Nintedo owned gsmes) however, I WOULD NOT support any Sonic (or Sega in general) games if Sega was owned by Nintendo. Laugh at me for being an old-school fuddy duddy if you want, but that's a soap box I'm not coming down from!

Edited December 11, 2012 by JD!

[Conando]

Technically you shouldn't support Sonic games on a Sony platform because, Sony's PS2 was what really killed SEGA. Despite the marketing, SEGA and Nintendo weren't bitter rivals, more like plain old rivals that respected each other.

Edited December 11, 2012 by Kringle Of Awesome

[Milo]

NO.

If this happened I would be floored. It would mean no more Sonic games on any platform that I use (which is mostly the PC) and I would with much sadness have to leave the fanbase and forget the franchise forever. So, fuck that.

The fuck.

I can understand the choice of choosing to no longer being up to date with the franchise/stop playing Sonic games up to that point/left the fanbase/franchise as a whole (heck, when Sonic games went downhill in quality, many people did exactly that), but why would you go up to the point of pretending you never had a history with the franchise as a result? Seems to be a heavily biased against Nintendo to the point of hatred beyond Sega HD levels to go to such an ultimate extreme IMO.

By that logic you should had done that the minute the Dreamcast died and/or the franchise was confirmed to continue as a multiplatform franchise (depending if you were still around at that time) or even taken it to an even higher extreme and quit gaming altogether.

Edited December 11, 2012 by Gabe the Elf

[Tornado]

Technically you shouldn't support Sonic games on a Sony platform because, Sony's PS2 was what really killed SEGA. Despite the marketing, SEGA and Nintendo weren't bitter rivals, more like plain old rivals that respected each other.

SEGA's Saturn is what really killed SEGA.

Edited December 12, 2012 by Tornado

[Vec]

That'd mean no more Football Manager on PC...So I'd say no!

[Conando]

SEGA's Saturn is what really killed SEGA.

...Touche.

[JD!]

Technically you shouldn't support Sonic games on a Sony platform because, Sony's PS2 was what really killed SEGA. Despite the marketing, SEGA and Nintendo weren't bitter rivals, more like plain old rivals that respected each other.

I've never owned a Sony console pretty much for that reason (and that after the Dreamcast dies I discoverd PC gaming )

[Autosaver]

SEGA's Saturn is what really killed SEGA.

SEGA is what killed SEGA.

[Frogging101]

The fuck.

I can understand the choice of choosing to no longer being up to date with the franchise/stop playing Sonic games up to that point/left the fanbase/franchise as a whole (heck, when Sonic games went downhill in quality, many people did exactly that), but why would you go up to the point of pretending you never had a history with the franchise as a result? Seems to be a heavily biased against Nintendo to the point of hatred beyond Sega HD levels to go to such an ultimate extreme IMO.

By that logic you should had done that the minute the Dreamcast died and/or the franchise was confirmed to continue as a multiplatform franchise (depending if you were still around at that time) or even taken it to an even higher extreme and quit gaming altogether.

A couple things. I only joined the fanbase back in October, and I wasn't involved with anything SEGA- or Sonic-related at the time of the Dreamcast. Also, what I meant by "forgetting the franchise forever" is that currently the Sonic franchise holds significant mental value with me. If it came to Nintendo buying SEGA then I would have to leave the fanbase as I'm not willing to buy a $300 console for one series. The only way to get every part of me to accept this is to adopt a certain kind of mindset, such as "I need to forget about this." so I don't dwell on the past.

I know it sounds pretty kookoo (I mean you might be thinking "it's a fucking video game series; why does he make such a big deal out of it?"). I just typed something explaining why this is but then erased it because it probably sounds retarded to anyone who doesn't know me. It's got something to do with me not having control over the direction of my thoughts, particularly ones pertaining to things heavily weighted in my mind. Basically when I care about something then it has the potential to affect my internal stability. But again that's a whole other (rather weird) can of worms.

[Ming Ming Hatsune]

Technically you shouldn't support Sonic games on a Sony platform because, Sony's PS2 was what really killed SEGA. Despite the marketing, SEGA and Nintendo weren't bitter rivals, more like plain old rivals that respected each other.

It's not Sony's fault that the Dreamcast was a total flop...there were so many issues with the Dreamcast that nailed the coffin for Sega. Sony simply just made a better console. If the PS2 wasn't around, the NGC will put the final nail on Dreamcast's coffin because that was a better console than the Dreamcast too.

[sonfan1984]

It's not Sony's fault that the Dreamcast was a total flop...there were so many issues with the Dreamcast that nailed the coffin for Sega. Sony simply just made a better console. If the PS2 wasn't around, the NGC will put the final nail on Dreamcast's coffin because that was a better console than the Dreamcast too.

What kind of issues are you talking about?

[Conando]

It didn't play DVDs. Even though Xbox and GCN didn't either. Well, Xbox COULD play DVDs but, not right out of the box.

[Tornado]

There was nothing Sega could have done about it. They designed the system far too early to give it a DVD drive, and if they had pushed it back to include one without it being prohibitively expensive then they would have lost the short amount of time they did have where the Dreamcast was on top of the world.

On top of that, while the Gamecube wouldn't have been able to do dick to the strength of the Dreamcast had it still been around at the end of 2001 (because almost every major title for the thing that wasn't made by Nintendo was made by Sega, so the Gamecube would have been doing worse than it already ending up doing if it didn't have those. Really, without Adventure 2 Battle on the system and the promise of more major Sega games to come, the thing might not have even made it through 2003), the XBox would have destroyed the Dreamcast just as thoroughly as the PS2 did. The original XBox wasn't the Dudebro Console of Choice™ the 360 is stereotyped as, and there was a lot of demographic overlap between the two.

Edited December 12, 2012 by Tornado

[Solkia]

So when is this guy gonna make his "Haha fooled you guys" video?