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The crazy rollercoaster that is SEGA's love-triangle merger may well be coming to an end - and an end that nobody really saw coming at that. Is it going to be Sammy that SEGA merges with? Or Namco? Turns out, it's probably going to be neither of them! On the one side, it sounds like Namco got tired of waiting for an answer from SEGA about whether it wanted to merge with the company or not, and decided to withdraw its offer after all. The Japanese newspaper Nihon Keizai Shimbun reports that, because SEGA "wasn't able to give a specific answer to its offer, Namco has dropped its proposal and SEGA has announced that merger talks have concluded." On the other side, SEGA also announced that it had broken off merger talks with Sammy as well. So now it seems like SEGA won't be merging with any company at all and will continue to go it alone. An article on Gamers.com says, "SEGA would have continued to consider Namco's offer, but Namco, which had asked for an answer by the end of the week, apparently considered that response unsatisfactory. "Namco said that it may consider a merger in the future at Sega's instigation, but Sega responded that it will not pursue such a course. Thus, it appears that Sega will no longer merge with anyone, at least in the near term. At a press conference announcing Sega's current course, president Hideki Sato declined to comment on any other potential future deals -- including a rumored capital investment by Electronic Arts." So, after all of that... SEGA is going to make it on its own! Hooray! View full story

A recent article written by Japanese website Asahi details the current state of SEGA, Namco and Sammy, and a possible merger with the former hardware giant and house of Sonic. Quite interestingly, this is turning out to be some kind of love triangle, tiffs included and all. To catch you up: it was announced in February that SEGA would be merging with pachinko company Sammy, with the deal all due to be wrapped up in May. Then, it turned out Namco had been talking with SEGA about the same thing since last year, and had publicly come out about a merger in mid-April. In response, SEGA announced it was "carefully" considering its options, a statement that clearly took Sammy by surprise. A decision from SEGA is due early May, but things have become a little frosty from Sammy's perspective. According to Asahi (via interpretation from Cube-Europe), Sammy President Hajime Satomi and the late CSK founder and former SEGA chairman Isao Okawa were close friends, and had apparently made a handshake agreement on their partnership back in February. So, "when Sega officials announced last month they were considering a partnership proposal from Namco, Sammy officials were furious... [SEGA president Hideki] Sato met with Satomi shortly after Namco proposed a merger on April 14. When Sato told Satomi about the offer from a third party, it took him completely by surprise." For its part, Namco has urged SEGA to move into partnership with them instead of Sammy, claiming that the two companies share the same goals and work in the same industry. "We have to do something, or Sega will go under," a Namco official was on record as saying. "Namco is Sega's best partner because we are in the same industry." Apparently SEGA killed talks with Namco just before it announced its merger with Sammy in February, but a senior Namco official said, "Sega has apparently come back to the negotiation table after seeing its stocks fall. We are serious about this and we wouldn't even mind Sega acquiring us." Interesting times! We'll let you know when SEGA makes a decision, and which way it ends up going. View full story

Namco and SEGA have made public statements confirming news that broke the other day that the two companies are in high-level negotiations to merge. SEGA stated that it had received Namco's proposal and will "begin examining the offer carefully". According to Namco's own statement on the matter, talks of a merger had apparently started last year, following a collaboration between the two companies in the arcade space (which likely included the 'Triforce' arcade board that has been co-developed with Nintendo). But SEGA "halted the talks", and recently Namco "requested a reopening" of those merger talks. SEGA said it would aim to come to a preliminary decision over Namco's proposal by April 23, noting that the company is already in late-stage talks with pachinko maker Sammy over a merger. For what it's worth, Sammy said that it was not aware of talks between Namco and SEGA, and hopes to close its deal in May so that the merge can happen in October. Gamespot reports that there is apparently more appetite for Namco to be SEGA's merging partner over Sammy. Since the news of talks broke, Namco's share price has reportedly risen 1.3 per cent while SEGA's has risen 15.72 per cent. In contrast, market reaction to SEGA and Sammy's merger in February actually resulted in a "rapid decline in stock value". We'll have to see what SEGA's decision is at the end of the month. View full story

Just when we thought SEGA's corporate story could not get any more complicated, it appears that discussions surrounding a merger with pachinko maker Sammy have actually been put on hold as fellow video game maker Namco has publicly expressed an interest in joining forces with the House of Sonic instead. According to a story on Gamespot (which cites the Japanese newspaper Nihon Keizai Shimbun), Namco has already engaged in merger talks with SEGA at the highest level. The Tekken publisher has stated that it feels the move would be beneficial to both parties, strengthening the power of both companies' IP catalogue and ensuring that they remain competitive internationally. "Sega is scheduled to hold a meeting to discuss mergers with three of its current suitors, including Sammy and Electronic Arts, which are reportedly interested in investing in Sega or at least doing some sort of tie-in with the company," reads the report. "Sega's board members are reportedly less interested in merging with Sammy due to its focus on pachinko machines, which has delayed talks with that particular company. Sega is expected to make an announcement as soon as the end of this month." Would you prefer that SEGA teams up with Sammy or Namco? View full story

SEGA may have given up the home console race, but it's still finding ways to surprise us in the hardware scene. And this latest news may shock you - the company is going to be collaborating with Nintendo and Namco on a unique arcade board called Triforce. Does the name sound familiar? It's also the name of the iconic emblem that can be found in Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda series. And that's significant, because the hardware itself will actually be based on Gamecube architecture. This triple-company team-up will allow for projects originally intended for the arcade to be easily ported to Nintendo's blocky home console. The stated goals are also to help bring about a 'creation of a high cost-performance game development environment' - basically meaning that producers can cut costs by working on code that can run easily across arcade and console platforms. A working prototype was unveiled at the AOU 2002 Amusement Expo in Japan's Makuhari Messe, on 22 February. SEGA's own World Cup Champion Football Series A 2001-2002 was used as a test case - that game was made by Amusement Vision of Super Monkey Ball fame, so could this studio be one of the major players working on this? And could we see Sonic Team doing something similar soon? Source: Cloudchaser View full story