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Sega reports $501 million dollar losses

Posted: Thu May 15, 2008 12:07 am
by snatcher1988

Re: Sega reports $501 million dollar losses

Posted: Thu May 15, 2008 4:54 am
by 87th
That's pretty nasty for them. I hope that publishing Platinum's games will help somewhat, as I'm sure those will turn out to be great. Sonic Unleashed looks like the type of thing they should have been doing a while ago, too (despite the stupid Sonic Werewolf).

Re: Sega reports $501 million dollar losses

Posted: Thu May 15, 2008 7:23 am
by snatcher1988
Personally, the only Sega game I care about right now is the Shenmue series. It really can't stay unfinished forever.

Re: Sega reports $501 million dollar losses

Posted: Thu May 15, 2008 7:33 am
by 87th
Well, I expect they're publishing the new Shinji Mikami/Goichi Suda game, so I'm very interested in how they do in the next year or so. I'm probably more excited about it than any other game, at the moment.

Re: Sega reports $501 million dollar losses

Posted: Sun May 18, 2008 12:09 am
by JimboKudo
The problem is that they REALLY try to milk their best series. I've played pretty much all of the latest Sonic games, and most of them are crap. I'm hoping that they get wise from their loss this year and begin to tweak their games properly. Although, I don't really think 501 mil is that much for a company like sega.

Re: Sega reports $501 million dollar losses

Posted: Sun May 18, 2008 6:27 pm
by Henry Spencer
On the contrary, it is a lot for Sega. They're struggling to hold together ever since the Dreamcast bombed. You have to remember, the console did have, at one time, the most expensive game ever made, which was a financial failure. Plus the 'Sonic' titles, don't seems enticing as they used to. Wonder why that is? :roll:

Virtua Fighter 5 was good. Yakuza 3 should be ace. Apart from that, I don't see any titles being developed by Sega that look good. It seems that Sega rake in most of their profits from publishing titles, rather than developing them...

Re: Sega reports $501 million dollar losses

Posted: Sun May 18, 2008 9:10 pm
by JimboKudo
Henry Spencer wrote:On the contrary, it is a lot for Sega. They're struggling to hold together ever since the Dreamcast bombed. You have to remember, the console did have, at one time, the most expensive game ever made, which was a financial failure. Plus the 'Sonic' titles, don't seems enticing as they used to. Wonder why that is? :roll:

Virtua Fighter 5 was good. Yakuza 3 should be ace. Apart from that, I don't see any titles being developed by Sega that look good. It seems that Sega rake in most of their profits from publishing titles, rather than developing them...
They just need to come out with something that no ones ever seen before. Clover Studio did that, and I'm pretty sure that their games sold fairly well. The funny thing about Shenmue is that it looks awesome from what I've seen, yet it never sold too well. Even if it had, making back the money which they spent over its 7 years of development hell would have been a bit tough at that time. I'm still not too concerned about them going bankrupt. To me, it would be a bit of a tragedy if the sunk, but they need to get out there and make an excellent game every once in a while. The first Yakuza game was decent, but it had many flaws. However, it was something new, and it was great to play it. I'm hoping that they don't milk the Yakuza series like they did Sonic. They need to make a new concept soon, hire some new people, and make some great games. If they don't, then they most likely WILL go out of business eventually, but I don't really forsee it in the near future.

Re: Sega reports $501 million dollar losses

Posted: Sun May 18, 2008 11:13 pm
by Synthoid
Jesus, that's pretty damn rough. I knew that Sega weren't doing too well for themselves since being relegated to a software developer and publisher, but I didn't realise it was this bad. Still, they do deserve it after the mockery they made of their flagship series, Sonic. That said, I agree with snatcher1988. Shenmue was amazing.

Re: Sega reports $501 million dollar losses

Posted: Sun May 18, 2008 11:43 pm
by JimboKudo
Synthoid wrote: Shenmue was amazing.
The Dreamcast is my next thing to buy for my retrogaming. There are only like 5 games that I heard were even good, and that includes Shenmue (the only other one I can think of off the top of my head is the Berserk game).

Re: Sega reports $501 million dollar losses

Posted: Mon May 19, 2008 4:52 am
by Henry Spencer
I'd recommend that you play Sonic Adventure 1 & 2, as well as that Berserk game (which is a great game). Soul Calibur. Jet Set Radio/Jet Grind Radio. Someone else can probably give you more titles to buy.

Re: Sega reports $501 million dollar losses

Posted: Mon May 19, 2008 6:38 am
by 87th
Space Channel 5
Crazy Taxi 1/2
Power Stone 1/2
Quake III: Arena
Resident Evil: Code Veronica
Resident Evil 2
Resident Evil 3: Nemesis
Rez
The Typing of The Dead
Ikaruga
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2
Mr Driller
Street Fighter III: Third Strike
Street Fighter Alpha 3

Thing is, every last one of these games are available on other consoles. :\ I've heard that "L.O.L. Lack of Love" is one of the most interesting and underrated games around, but I haven't played it, so I can't vouch for that.

Re: Sega reports $501 million dollar losses

Posted: Mon May 19, 2008 2:44 pm
by StreetTrash
It's F*ing Sammy and their F*ing pachinko shit that's killing Sega. In fact it's Sammy that's killing Sega full stop! Face it, even back in the 8 bit and 16 bit days ANYTHING released by Sammy on home consoles then was complete shit just like now.

Re: Sega reports $501 million dollar losses

Posted: Mon May 19, 2008 3:30 pm
by 87th
Despite the arguable quality of Sammy's work, I'm not sure if I'd agree that they are responsible for Sega's losses, as I haven't seen any evidence of that (I'm not saying there isn't any, but I haven't seen it). From my first-hand experience, Pachinko parlours seem to be doing very well, and I find it hard to believe that they are to blame for this.

Re: Sega reports $501 million dollar losses

Posted: Mon May 19, 2008 11:34 pm
by Synthoid
Back in the hole!

Re: Sega reports $501 million dollar losses

Posted: Tue May 20, 2008 11:23 am
by JimboKudo
87th wrote:Despite the arguable quality of Sammy's work, I'm not sure if I'd agree that they are responsible for Sega's losses, as I haven't seen any evidence of that (I'm not saying there isn't any, but I haven't seen it). From my first-hand experience, Pachinko parlours seem to be doing very well, and I find it hard to believe that they are to blame for this.
Yeah, actually, the pachinko games I hear are really popular in Japan. And Sammy Studios doesn't suck that much. I bought Berserk for the PS2, and I'm having a blast with that (one complaint would be that there's an infinite number of bad guys to mow down). I think it's that most of their good stuff doesn't get released outside of Japan, and therefore, we don't really hear about it.

Re: Sega reports $501 million dollar losses

Posted: Tue May 20, 2008 3:20 pm
by Henry Spencer
Actually, Berserk for the PS2 is a completely different game altogether, made by a different development team.

Sword Of The Berserk: Gut's Rage is a DC exclusive that is a chapter within the Berserk canon (written by Kentaro Miura himself). Berserk for the PS2, on the other hand is about the manga series at large (spanning across many volumes).

Both are worth owning, fantastic hack and slashers (definitely the most violent of the genre, too, with incredible stories).

Re: Sega reports $501 million dollar losses

Posted: Wed May 21, 2008 4:13 pm
by seraphssavior
My friends and I do a lot of gaming in the dorms, and we've had a lot of talks about this. We all agree that Sonic died with the Adventure series. I thought it died with Adventure 2, my friend maintains that it died with Adventure. The reason that we came to is that Sonic began to suffer the "Poochie" Fate.
He became a bland, corporate entity, shouting out catch-phrases and advertisements. Sonic games were good when everyone was mute. Sonic didn't say a word, just wore regular shoes, not the Soap kind; and he spent the game doing what he did best, beating the crap out of Robotnik. I know he's called "Eggman" now, but that's just another mistake made by Sega. He didn't run around town, shredding up the place on a snowboard.
He was the only one that could go super. I'll make exceptions for Tails and Knuckles, but every time they make a new Sonic game, the new, boring character can go super. It just kind of ruins the point. Super was supposed to be something special, not some reused excuse to bond with the "new guy," and succeed through teamwork.

What I think Sega needs to do is drop the voice acting altogether with Sonic. Make a new game on a handheld that doesn't rely on gimmicks. If it's on the DS, don't make the touch screen do anything special. If it's on the PSP, don't try to go Square-Enix with cutscenes and graphics. Don't even have cutscenes except for the beginning and the end. Just a solid 2-D platformer where you beat up Robotnik (I use this name on purpose), with good music...preferably without songs that have vocals. Sonic R, Sonic Heroes, and many others have taught us that Sonic and vocals don't get along well.

And another good Shining Force wouldn't hurt them, either.

Re: Sega reports $501 million dollar losses

Posted: Wed May 21, 2008 4:57 pm
by JimboKudo
seraphssavior wrote:My friends and I do a lot of gaming in the dorms, and we've had a lot of talks about this. We all agree that Sonic died with the Adventure series. I thought it died with Adventure 2, my friend maintains that it died with Adventure. The reason that we came to is that Sonic began to suffer the "Poochie" Fate.
He became a bland, corporate entity, shouting out catch-phrases and advertisements. Sonic games were good when everyone was mute. Sonic didn't say a word, just wore regular shoes, not the Soap kind; and he spent the game doing what he did best, beating the crap out of Robotnik. I know he's called "Eggman" now, but that's just another mistake made by Sega. He didn't run around town, shredding up the place on a snowboard.
He was the only one that could go super. I'll make exceptions for Tails and Knuckles, but every time they make a new Sonic game, the new, boring character can go super. It just kind of ruins the point. Super was supposed to be something special, not some reused excuse to bond with the "new guy," and succeed through teamwork.

What I think Sega needs to do is drop the voice acting altogether with Sonic. Make a new game on a handheld that doesn't rely on gimmicks. If it's on the DS, don't make the touch screen do anything special. If it's on the PSP, don't try to go Square-Enix with cutscenes and graphics. Don't even have cutscenes except for the beginning and the end. Just a solid 2-D platformer where you beat up Robotnik (I use this name on purpose), with good music...preferably without songs that have vocals. Sonic R, Sonic Heroes, and many others have taught us that Sonic and vocals don't get along well.

And another good Shining Force wouldn't hurt them, either.
It kinda reminds me of the first couple seasons of Dragon Ball Z. At first, there's mention of a Super Saiyan, and Goku works REALLY hard to become one. Then it all goes to heck when the next couple seasons have just about everyone and their sister turning Super Saiyan. Eventually it was like, you're not special, you're just regular. And that's what's happened to Sonic. I don't want 150 playable characters. I'll take Sonic and Tails, but THAT'S IT. Half of the new characters' new powers are re-hashed old ones anyway. I remember beating Sonic 2 for the gba with Cream. When I finally got to the end, it felt just like playing as tails. The only difference was that Cream had this really cheap attack that allowed me to beat the leader by standing on a platform, out of danger, and just pressing the B button. That's not the type of character I want to play as. Give me challenge or give me death!
Anyway, thanks for all of the suggestions for Dreamcast games guys. I'll be sure to refer to these when I finally get up enough cash to go buy one. :grin: