Microsoft, EA Bid for Sega?
- Thread starter Blane
- Start date
ABCMan
1
its true that sega is in the crapper, the merger with sammy was simply to gain some financal stability.
what is interesting is what has come before. when m$ detailed their latest HUGE losses on its xbox division there was an odd, un-noted figure which was going into japan, it was and still is believed that this money was going into japan to support sega in exchange for a wider range of "exclusive" titles for its xbox console. the problem is that its been very much a chicken and egg situation, the more exclusives that sega made for the xbox, the more segas losses climbed and the more money m$ pumped in, of course this means that billy boy should have been able to buy out sega for a nice low price untill ea stepped up to the plate.
the problem for any sega / m$ bid is that as has been said before several of the MAIN teams withing sega do not wist to work for m$ or on the m$ console so whilst m$ may well buy sega its an almost certainty that as with the rare buyout most of the people who made the decent sega games in the past will simply leave the company. sonic team and am2 wish to continue to work for nintendo so even without sonic they would greatly add to nintendos programming talent, the sega sports division have expressed an interest in going to sony to take over their 989 sports division, some of their "star" programmers of games like the sega rpg's are likely to move to other rpg based companies (like the newly merged squaresoft/enix group).
So what exactly would m$ get for their money? well as in the case of rare they would get the name and a certain folowing that would go along with it, they would get a mixed bag of programming talent to which they could add by offering higher saleries than their competitors (although that didnt work at rare) and they get the rights to the names and charecters(sp?) of the sega group, they also would get segas arcade division BUT no hardware to run as an arcade platform (since sega are now using nintendo's triforce platform) again the triforce programmers would most likely move to namco or nintendo to continue to work with the hardware thay know.
Microsoft could buy up the gaming industry but unless it can convince the public to actualy buy its console (and then buy its games) it makes no difference, a programming houes name rests on the talent that works for it and if the talent leaves its just a name with a history.
Will be sad to se sega go that way though.
what is interesting is what has come before. when m$ detailed their latest HUGE losses on its xbox division there was an odd, un-noted figure which was going into japan, it was and still is believed that this money was going into japan to support sega in exchange for a wider range of "exclusive" titles for its xbox console. the problem is that its been very much a chicken and egg situation, the more exclusives that sega made for the xbox, the more segas losses climbed and the more money m$ pumped in, of course this means that billy boy should have been able to buy out sega for a nice low price untill ea stepped up to the plate.
the problem for any sega / m$ bid is that as has been said before several of the MAIN teams withing sega do not wist to work for m$ or on the m$ console so whilst m$ may well buy sega its an almost certainty that as with the rare buyout most of the people who made the decent sega games in the past will simply leave the company. sonic team and am2 wish to continue to work for nintendo so even without sonic they would greatly add to nintendos programming talent, the sega sports division have expressed an interest in going to sony to take over their 989 sports division, some of their "star" programmers of games like the sega rpg's are likely to move to other rpg based companies (like the newly merged squaresoft/enix group).
So what exactly would m$ get for their money? well as in the case of rare they would get the name and a certain folowing that would go along with it, they would get a mixed bag of programming talent to which they could add by offering higher saleries than their competitors (although that didnt work at rare) and they get the rights to the names and charecters(sp?) of the sega group, they also would get segas arcade division BUT no hardware to run as an arcade platform (since sega are now using nintendo's triforce platform) again the triforce programmers would most likely move to namco or nintendo to continue to work with the hardware thay know.
Microsoft could buy up the gaming industry but unless it can convince the public to actualy buy its console (and then buy its games) it makes no difference, a programming houes name rests on the talent that works for it and if the talent leaves its just a name with a history.
Will be sad to se sega go that way though.
ABCMan
1
i guess the honest answer is that when the games are for your own console they will sell no matter what, but in the open market you dont have the same brand loyalty.
give their multi platform approach sales were adequate but the injection of m$ cash started a downward spiral, by switching previously exclusive games to the xbox sega reduced the number of sales they could make ps2 has a huge userbase so decent sales, gamecube is unhacked so decent sales for decent games, the xbox has neither even a good game wont sell in the quantities it would on other systems as it has a limited userbase and rampant piracy. the other problem stems from the "lowest common denominator" multi platform curse where even on the gamecube the games look like ps2 titles since the games are designed to work on the weakest target system.
the long and the short of it is a bad business decision by sega, if the refused m$ money they would probably have been ok, but the more they become an xbox exclusive developer the less money they make (and the more they need from m$)
give their multi platform approach sales were adequate but the injection of m$ cash started a downward spiral, by switching previously exclusive games to the xbox sega reduced the number of sales they could make ps2 has a huge userbase so decent sales, gamecube is unhacked so decent sales for decent games, the xbox has neither even a good game wont sell in the quantities it would on other systems as it has a limited userbase and rampant piracy. the other problem stems from the "lowest common denominator" multi platform curse where even on the gamecube the games look like ps2 titles since the games are designed to work on the weakest target system.
the long and the short of it is a bad business decision by sega, if the refused m$ money they would probably have been ok, but the more they become an xbox exclusive developer the less money they make (and the more they need from m$)