Peter Moore talks Sega in his latest IGN Interview

[Trippled]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZBR4uHec_k


Points that stick out to me, on how had a confernce call in December of 2002, and he coudn't convice Sega of Japan to fully convince to globalize and be completly focused on  the western market together with Microsoft. He was furstrated and left, Kalinske style.


I haven't heard that before...


Also interresting - Sega, by focus tests, was perceived as an old grandpa that is forgotten and still has a presence, but is not really there.

[Sharky]

But nobody liked the wanker... Sounds like a moutain of salt to me.

[Trippled]

So I don't know, he comes off better than Kalinske, who suddenly began to just trash Sega. Moore, to be fair didn't do that.

[George]

Its a bit weird tho, he said he loved quirky games that SEGA created and even NAMED creators by name. Very respectful imo, but he was right when he had to explain to SEGA that the market was changing to more 'western games' that are more 'serious' which he was right though. Look at the top selling games, even Nintendo has a hard time being competitive, their games are better than most top selling titles that do 4x more (Assassins Creed titles).

[Trippled]

He also talks about them making games for the Japanese market. While that might be true, I felt Sega went much further down that end with in-house developed games as time went on as a third party.

[George]

The thing that is funny is that AM2's games were mostly aimed at western audiences. Daytona USA being the big one.

[Trippled]

I don't think they had any concern of the overseas markets especially when it came to arcade, since they made so much money with it in Japan alone.

Peter Moore is right in that, aside from Sonic, Sega was still primarily thinking of the Japanese market.

[George]

They are in a sense and thats what SEGA west has done. The new restructure has SEGA America basically as a localization middle man and that is probably the best.

The issue is SEGA Japan hasn't had a long series for awhile. Right now they are still pumping Sonic (which has gotten its own brand team here), Yakuza, Hatsune Miku and Puyo Puyo (due to its more recent success they have made their games bigger). The issue is SEGA hasn't created new brands for a new generation and this generation is quite a ways in. This is why it seems like 'meh' in terms of content. IF SEGA was serious they would give each franchise they created for a new generation a fair chance which they are known for not doing. For example the first Yakuza localization was a mess and the team hyping it kept telling people it was a Japanese GTA, after that they kept quite about bringing back other games and never gave it a full push it deserved.

Hatsune Miku had the same issue, Western SEGA wasn't keen on pushing it forward and same thing happen with Binary Domain (brought out to die).

This doesn't just happen with SEGA West vs SEGA Japan tho, SEGA America didn't advertise Isolation compared to the marketing push they gave Colonial Marines because Marines was a game they were doing and Europe's Creative Assembly worked on Isolation.

SEGA isn't unified, even now. Look at GamesCom, its all PC titles which is sad cuz they have a Mania, Yakuza 0 and other demos sitting right there to show off to a new audience.

[Trippled]

I think the problems back then versus the problems are of completly different caliber.

Back then, Sega did localization AND original western games in good quantity. Sure there were fighting between branches because of hardware, but in software, the goal was more or less common, even on duds like 32X or CD.

As a third party, Sega Japan has less reason to pull out their entire team behind worldwide releases on big consoles...especially the arcade studios right now, have pretty much no connection to console development right now...throughout Sega's history this has never happened.

[George]

Not to mention SEGA hasn't made lasting new IPs this generation. Last generation they tried and had issues with making things stick, even if they had some great titles they aren't going to be mentioned for a long time. I think the number one division that lacked something to talk about was SEGA Japan. I mean, can you name a new SEGA Japan IP last year or this year that did well?

During the PS2 era we at least had Yakuza. I get why fans feel that SEGA is stale, because they are atm. They aren't ready for risks or new IPs and lets be honest, that is boring.

[Trippled]

Well they have on arcade and mobile (in Japan), so they kinda know how to do it.

[crackdude]

From that point of view most game companies are stale

[Team Andromeda]

But nobody liked the wanker... Sounds like a moutain of salt to me.

? . I 've always thought Moore was the best President SOA ever had . He and his SOA team did a wonderful job more so with limited resources and backing only to be let down by the French baboon running SEGA Europe at the time and SEGA Japan poor performance in Japan 

[Team Andromeda]

Well they have on arcade and mobile (in Japan), so they kinda know how to do it.

That's part if not most of  the trouble . Arcades now have very limited  appeal in  West and well Mobile isn't going to get gamers in the west excited in a way that a huge AAA console/PC title would . It's the lack of focus on the main consoles that's SEGA issues (to be fair its an issues for most of Japan developers) and to me most depressing of all it the lack of serious console tech from Japan,how the likes of Val team aren't even working on console anymore, the lack of the visually unique games like JSR  and the almost complete lack of Online games from SEGA Japan ; SEGA Japan gone from leading the field and the whole console industry for Online support and games to basically nothing . The lack of PSO built for the consoles and uniting console players around the world (like PSO did) is quite depressing . 

Trouble was in the SEGA Enterprises days we were all spoilt by an energetic vibrant exciting company that just made so many increabile games most with stunning graphics and amazing soundtracks it was getting silly and where I got the impression the staff would work of SEGA even if they weren't getting paid as they all seemed to be having a ball making the games they wanted to make and SEGA letting them  ...   A huge part of me thinks SEGA was never the same after  Hayao Nakayama left SEGA and the creative spirt of SEGA seemed to die with the sad passing of the late great Isao Okawa. SEGA still make good games and I'll always want to see SEGA do well on the game side, but like for most of Japan developers,  their better days seem  behind them for the time being  ....

But what goes around , comes around . So there's hope that the good days of console gaming will return to Japan

[Sharky]

? . I 've always thought Moore was the best President SOA ever had . He and his SOA team did a wonderful job more so with limited resources and backing only to be let down by the French baboon running SEGA Europe at the time and SEGA Japan poor performance in Japan 

Oh man I always hated him...  He reminded me of Simon Jeffery, (the very worst) I always got the feeling he never cared much about SEGA or their games and was just filling a CEO role as a buisnessman.