Sega is no longer the force it once was in the games industry, long overtaken by its historical rival Nintendo and replaced by the likes of Microsoft and Sony. On the flip-side, the company has done its best to be flexible, allowing properties such as Sonic to feature in games on a variety of platforms. One platform it’s taken a significant interest in is mobile, with reports suggesting Sega has dedicated nearly a third of its devs to the creation of iOS and Android titles.
A story by Yuji Nakamura and Takashi Amano on business news outlet Bloomberg states that Sega has moved a healthy chunk of its 2000 developers into mobile games. Speaking with the president of the company’s games unit, Hideki Okamura, the article says that Sega’s change in focus has already started to pay off:
A team formerly tasked with producing amusement park games developed Chain Chronicle, which has been downloaded almost 3 million times and generated 7.5 billion yen since its release, the company said in May. Sega and mobile game developer Gumi Inc. announced plans in July to jointly publish Sega games in Europe, North America and South Asia, beginning with Chain Chronicle this year.
What’s interesting is that this success on mobile has come from new properties, rather than the likes of a certain blue hedgehog. In fact, according to Okamura, it has no Sonic games in development at all.
Towards the end of the piece, it’s mentioned that Sega is still contemplating games for next-generation consoles and even the PC, though its focus in this regard is currently on China:
Sega was studying the Chinese market to see what titles would best fit and meet approval of the government. He said games with military, martial arts and cultural themes have proven particularly popular with PC gamers in China, which might provide a guide for game console titles.
“You might find an explosive hit if you play it right,” Okamura said. “Once PS4 and Xbox take off, we need to release titles that will fit within the regulatory framework.”
Sonic the Hedgehog Maker Focuses on Apps on Mobile Growth [Bloomberg, via Reddit]
Image: Wikipedia
Comments
4 responses to “Sega Is Getting Serious About Mobile”
good on em, thats a healthy service games
A number of years ago Sega refocused its Brisbane Studio (aka The Creative Assembly, aka Sega Studios Australia) away from console games and onto mobile and PSN/XBLA games, before they eventually shut down. So this has been in the pipeline for a while I would suspect.
It’d be nice if they would still localize the few games they’re still developing for portables and consoles though.
valkyria chronicles 1 2 and 3 \o/