OP
OP
Painful..? Hmmm...I feel pretty good looking at their console/handheld line-up and their arcade line up at the next expo
-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
Sega of Japan research, information & discussion
- Thread starter Dooble
- Start date
Painful..? Hmmm...I feel pretty good looking at their console/handheld line-up and their arcade line up at the next expo
Thanks for this thread, genuinely very helpful. I'd lost all track of who was still doing what within Sega between all their reorgs over the years.
OP
OP
In what sense? Lack of western releases? We have arcade games in different genres (racing, gun game, rhythm, action rpg etc.), 2 mech games, online rpg and an open world brawler for consoles. Sure it is not revolutionary like with the dawn of 3d gaming and 16 bits, but like someone in the thread said, you feel like they are doing what theiir purpose is. Varied, interresting games. Painful is different.
At the beginning of the 6th console generation, even after the Dreamcast was over, Sega was at least twice as prolific as they are now and with quality titles, both on consoles and in arcades. That isn't even up for debate, it was just a reality. Yakuza wouldn't be a thing today if it hadn't been one of many experiments undertaken during this highly-prolific period.
The 10 was including WaveMaster and AM#2 we're always part of SEGA, the so called sale to CRI was just a way of the late great Okawa-san being able to help SEGA cash flow and not break Japan business rules.
So in total SEGA Japan had 10 In house studios back in the DC days
OP
OP
Lets's compare
2002:
Console:
VF4
Panzer Dragoon Orta
GunValkyrie
JSRF
Space Channel 5 Part 2
Sonc Adventure 2 Battle
Sakura Wars IV
Monkey Ball 2
Crazy Taxi 3
Shinobi
PSO Ep1&2
Shining Soul GBA
Virtua Tennis 2 PS2
Arcade:
Lupin III The Typing
Initial D Arcade Stage
The King of Route 2002
Mahjong Arcade
Soul Surfer
Beach Spikers
Virtua Striker 2002
World Club Champion Football
Now, 2018, keep in mind, not everything has been announced, the year just started.
Console:
Border Break
PSO2 Cloud
Shin Yakuza
Shining Resonance Refrain
Hokuto Ga Gotoku
Valkyria Chronicles 4
A Certain Magical Virtual-On
Mobile games (they existed before, but now they are in actual scale)
Arcade:
Sega World Drivers Championship
House of the Dead Scarlet Dawn
Ongaki
Fate Grand Order Arcade
Soul Reverse
Updates to existing games...
Overall, yes the 2002 line up was pretty outstanding. But the 2018 line-up is no slouch either. I think - there is not that much missing to reach the greatness of 2002. And imo by 2003-2005, the line-up wasn't as good anyways. I think 2018 is almost equal there.
Quick note but this was outsourced to Grasshopper Manufacture and Nextech. The main guy behind Shining Soul 1-2 (Akira Ueda) left GHM right after to form his own company Audio Inc where he developed the cult hit Contact on DS and went on to work on a bunch of other portable and mobile games as a contractor (KORG-M series, Paper Mario SS, Fantasy Life, Terra Battle, etc). Before GHM he worked at Square and Love-de-Lic too.
CS3 would be fully capable of it inhouse and it'd be awesome. I'd even settle for a Canvas Engine based SOA1 remake.
I agree, 2018 is the closest to a banner year Sega has had in a long time.
But you'll notice that I was comparing whole generations, not singular years.
When looking at the 6th generation against what has occurred in the 8th generation so far or even the entirety of the 7th, the comparison falls apart, even when excluding Dreamcast.
Last edited:
Me too, especially now. I wonder why they stopped to be honest, I thought they'd be relatively good money spinners
CS3 is the only interesting one to me.
That's some very interesting read.
That's some very interesting read.
OP
OP
Updated the OP with some more text.
Again, Sega Japan internally is really interresting. Anything Sega goes.
http://sega.co.jp/english/about/summary/
Again, Sega Japan internally is really interresting. Anything Sega goes.
http://sega.co.jp/english/about/summary/
Very nice thread as always Dooble..
Thanx.
Could you update your 2018 list ? I wonder if i missed exciting announces...
@Terrel
It's not even a fair comparison.
Compare to PS2, 2018 games often need ten times more developers to maintain a certain level.
Dooble
Could you make a staff comparison for 2001 and 2018 at sega or other companies ?
Hey guys, I just noticed this thread since it got floated up, and wanted to point out that some of the info in the OP is a couple years out of date and is more accurate for SEGA circa 2013 or so, not 2018 (going on 2019). Just hitting the broad strokes, CS3 doesn't exist anymore (absorbed into the other two studios), and the current heads of CS1 and CS2 are Sato-san and Kasahara-san, respectively. Online, while it does have some mobile related stuff, is not "the mobile studio", and it is headed by a gentleman named Segawa-san. SEGA Interactive (AM) studios are a little vague to me, but those are a totally different company than SEGA Games.
Edit: I use SEGA Retro as a quick reference from time to time and appreciate when it's accurate.
Edit: I use SEGA Retro as a quick reference from time to time and appreciate when it's accurate.
Last edited:
OP
OP
Gee, Sega changed it up again? Only 2 CS studios sends the message to me that Sonic is less of a priority in Japan internally now. (CS1 is RGG Studios, CS2 is the rest).
in their investor reports, they listed Sonic as a Sega of America product, so Sonic will probably be produced out of SoA from now on like some previous games were. whether that means they'll be made in Japan by the usual team is up in the air though
Hey. Sega promised a mad year for fans. Can we expect a final big announcement for December ? Or Panzer Dragoon Remakes were the last exciting partnerships of 2018 ?
Last edited:
CS2 has producers at SOA now (they did Mania) and Izuka's often traveling back and forth overseas so I'd expect some oversight still. I believe they also took over production for Sumo's racers from SOE/West. That Sonic IR designation might be more an "ownership" thing, similar to how Capcom USA "owns" Street Fighter but Ono still produces and oversees everything from back in Japan.
if that was the case, you'd think the trademark would list Sega of America, like Capcom USA is listed
Maybe they will now? We haven't had a new Sonic in awhile, Team Racing is the next one up.
it would have shown up on the website or in Smash Bros, so I guess Sega Japan legally owns it, Sega America just does a lot of the producing work with the Izuka and crew
Looking at copyrights Smash just seems to credit "SEGA" but then so does egerything from Total War to Yakuza and so on, so this isn't really clear either. Perhaps this past FY Sonic was filed under Sega USA because Mania Plus was the only technically new release, or maybe with the last restructure (and Mania outperforming Forces) stewardship really has moved to the US production team? Maybe Izuka's moving over more permanently too given the apparent CS2/CS3 merger? Lots of possibilities here and I want know more!
I mean probably there isn't a proper Sonic Team anymore. Maybe next games of the series will be developed in west like TSR?
Damn, that's... Hard. Given the next title of Valkyria Team is Sakura Taisen (maybe) and Nagoshi Team is developing Shin Yakuza
Sonic Team has only existed as just a name for awhile now. I doubt anyone is fired, but it does seem like SEGA America will now call the shots with everything, which could mean no internally developed Sonic games for a few years.
It is probably good news for the general quality of the franchise going forward, but I am sure people like Iizuka will still be involved.
On console, it doesn't really matter how many noticeably people still around in Sega when no outputs actually come out from the company compare to what they used to produce many interesting IPs. The recent announced Panzer Dragon remake needs to be outsourced only show how development capacity in Sega (or for the matter, Japan as a whole) is decreasing ever since the PS3 era. Wish them the best, hope something or someone can create a better environment with a focus not on mobile (at least not designed on gacha) for Indies developers in Japan.
They should just give sonic to another team. Team Sonic clearly knows how to makes games. Just not Sonic games. Change their name, and move Sonic somewhere else.
I would say that after this a mainline 3D Sonic game is not something we will be seeing for many years. I would not mind seeing Sumo give it a shot, though.
This.
I wonder how AM2 or Nagoshi would handle a Sonic Game :) (simple curiosity)
Sonic has too much name recognition to not have a game come out. especially with a movie in the works.
and there's no reason to stick with 2D Sonic going forward. not when the problem isn't the perspective, but underbaked efforts. Colors and Generations weren't flukes
They are likely going to stick with the games that actually sell well for awhile. The racers and Mania have done better than anything else related to Sonic in a long time.
they're also the ones that had the most positive word of mouth. I have questions about Team Sonic Racing, but I trust it to be good. the last time 3D Sonics had positive WoM? Colors and Generations, both either matched or exceeded Mania's last known figures. since then we had Lost World, 3 Boom games of questionable quality at best, and the half-baked Forces.
essentially, 3D Sonic works and sells, provided they don't fuck it up.
Sonic Color's sales source:
https://www.segasammy.co.jp/english/pdf/release/1103appendix_e_final.pdf#page=3
Sonic Generations
https://www.ign.com/articles/2012/02/03/sega-reveals-sonic-generations-mario-sonic-sales
Sonic Mania
http://www.siliconera.com/2018/04/24/sonic-mania-reaches-1-million-worldwide-sales/
Generations and especially Colors are honestly barely even 3D games. I also think that if Generations were to come out now after Mania people would be a lot less forgiving.
Colors was kind of a fluke anyways IMO. I do not like the game myself so I guess I am not the target demographic anyways.
Colors was kind of a fluke anyways IMO. I do not like the game myself so I guess I am not the target demographic anyways.
On top of those they have Shin Yakuza and probably another project we are not aware of yet. They are very busy.
RGG Online is from the Online R&D group I thought? Or did you mean Shin Yakuza?
Next full main yakuza game with a new protagonist, some sort of Yakuza 7 / reboot with a new story