Japan’s gaming giants lumber off
As a business, Sega is doing fine. It has two mobile games that, on their own, each turn over $5 million a month. That’s to say nothing of Sega’s succesful non-gaming businesses. The company’s projected revenue forecast on the fiscal year is up almost $90 million over last year’s. Go over the financial release if you want.
As a developer and publisher of moderate to big budget videogames, particularly outside of Japan, Sega is shrinking. Console releases are not selling enough. Alien: Isolation couldn’t even outsell Colonial Marines, Sonic Boom sales were disappointing (so was the game). Even in Japan, Yakuza Zero and Phantasy Star Nova sold poorly relative to past series entries.
It’s not surprising, then, that Sega confirmed to Game Informer it would not have a booth at E3.
“Over the next months, SEGA of America will be focusing on the restructure and relocation to Southern California, and we have decided to not attend E3 with our own booth this year,” reads the Sega representative’s statement. “With the majority of our bigger titles launching later in 2015/2016, particularly those from our AAA studios Relic Entertainment, Sports Interactive and Creative Assembly, we are concentrating our efforts for some of these major announcements after our relocation. Instead, we will be collaborating with our various business partners for this year’s E3 show.”
So, sure, Total War: Warhammer will probably be in some PC-related booth, but there will be no giant Sonic statue for me to look on and despair about.
Even last year it was just a giant square that was half Sonic Boom, half Alien: Isolation, with a Hatsune Miku rhythm game on the side. Not as sad as Capcom or Konami, but not impressive, even if Alien was the best thing I played at E3.
Oh well, Sega. We’ll always have Valkyria Chronicles, which I am still replaying at the moment. And at least Atlus will have a booth.
Sega Will Not Have Its Own Booth At E3 2015 [Game Informer]
