Sega is currently profitable, Sammy is currently unprofitable. The parent company selling its money-maker while keeping its money-loser seems unlikely. Yes it’s certainly possible that in a post covid world Sammy and its amusements will become profitable again, but even if they were willing to spin off Sega, it may well be cheaper to buy all of Sega-Sammy than just to buy Sega alone.
I suspect that it any such acquisition happened, it would be the whole company, followed by MS attempting to sell off Sammy to another party.
I would expect something along these lines right now. Legalize the backcompat market and make the need for emulators go away. Create hypervisors for all the previous SEGA machines, Neogeo machines, and if necessary even Atari. And offer them through Gamepass.
Random “vetted” person on Neogaf is claiming Sony, among other companies are courting Sega for acquisition. Of course, they say that because of the recent Nexxon investment, nothing could happen.
Imagine using somebody “vetted” by a place like NeoGaf.
Backwards compatibility localization will lead to tons of fines to Microsoft. At most I expect Sega backwards compatibility support as Sega is one of those companies that continues to pay for licenses in their own games.
Yeah… I think some of those people need to have their heads checked. Sony’s moves, even including purchasing Insomniac, don’t indicate a company in the financial position to be purchasing publishers…
Hell, I’d argue that Sony (despite what the fanatics will imply otherwise) still don’t see Xbox or their recent moves as much to worry about given how loyal their fanbase is. Then you add in the fractional financial capabilities of Sony compared to MS and I’m just sitting here looking at these people like:
Sega with Sony would be terrible. They are shutting down their own proven Japanese studios. What happens if Sega has one bad misfire? MS has been growing the studios they acquire. Would Sony even value Sega’s western PC devs?
Sega’s creative director Nagoshi has said the heart of Sega is an Indie Company. Sega has always been different and a company that thinks out of the box and tries new things. People say MS is a big monopoly and corporate and greedy. but I would rather have Sega under Phil Spencer leadership rather than Jim Ryan. Phil Spencer is hands off and sees the value in passion projects. Jim Ryan can’t even see the value in preserving legacy content. He’s not a gamer he is a numbers guy.
Sony acquiring Sega makes me throw up in my mouth. Excuse the language but fuck that!
Really good take. As long as we’re all speculating on the business side of things, one thing that needs to be considered in any partnership is the synergies. Like players on a sports team. Sometimes a player is a perfect fit and has more value to a team based on how the strengths and weaknesses compliment each other. A basketball team that has a lot of scorers but lacks someone to play defense and do the dirty work inside is less concerned with a free agent big man’s weaknesses shooting the ball and put more value on his defense and rebounding. I look at Sega and Microsoft as great compliments to each other whether it’s a partnership or acquisition. Sega has a lot of IP. They have talent. They have legacy name recognition in some markets that Xbox doesn’t. Their games also don’t fit well into the traditional model any longer. They are that upper middle class…not big enough to gain attention over other AAA devs and no GAAS games to help offset the risks of these one and done games. Their IPs would have more value in a subscription that trying to retail individually for $60/$70. I think Sega needs a pivot and Game Pass may rejuvenate and help them become their best version.
