2 Cents: SEGA

SEGA president and CEO Hajime Satomi, was quoted in Famitsu saying "As far as the Western market goes, we learned a lot from Atlus...If we can make a title with proper quality, I believe there’s a good chance for it to do well even in the West for players that like to play Japanese games.”

I give my 2 cents as to why this statement feels empty and hollow, and how SEGA has a lot more complicated path ahead of them to return consumer confidence than they are acknowledging

[ShadowWolfRising]

wait, he blamed us for poor MARKETING? how the hell could that ever be the fault of fans for ANY series?

[RPGswagman]

I was one of the few awesome people who was apart of Shining Force SOS and I was amazed at the passion of the other fans through the videos they posted for the campaign. 

I was dumbfounded at Sega's response at the time and the "professionalism" of the Shining Producer towards the western fans.  I know a lot of people who had their videos taken down and it's still a sour topic to bring up even now. I know some channels that will bring up the series but out of spite they will not show gameplay. 

Honestly I gave the Shining series a viking funeral a few years ago and consider it a truly great thing of the past and nothing more. My only love is for the Sonic/Camelot software planning games and I will not buy any of the post Shining Force 3 Saga games (The only exception was Resurrection of the Dark Dragon on GBA). 

But other than that I still want to give them a chance if they are willing to change and turn things around. Oh the Shining series in my eyes is beyond saving. But some of the other franchises still have a chance. The upcoming release of Yakuza 5 on PSN will be an interesting opportunity to see if they can garner mass interest once again. Unfortunately like the Shining series they held the Yakuza fans accountable when Yakuza Dead Souls did poorly which is why 5 has taken so long ... that and the restructuring of the company. It was sad that they weren't brave to admit that Dead Souls was an inferior product and wasn't up to the same level of quality as the mainline games. Thankfully Sony stepped in and helped bring the Yakuza 5 localization back to life and I really hope it can sell well and bring the series back into consideration for future releases.

The only things I can suggest (or in this case consider it wishful thinking) for Sega to show good faith towards the fans is:

1. Make Valkyria Chronicles 4 for PS4/PC. The next big RPG boom is going to happen soon and if they want in on it they'll need to pull out the big guns.The first Valkyria Chronicles was in my opinion the PS3's stand out title and I still consider it to be the best game on the system. The steam release generated a lot of sales so the interest for the series is still there. 

2. Bring back the Shenmue HD 1 & 2 project that was "supposedly" in production years ago. With Shenmue 3 coming out sometime in 2017 they have this window of opportunity to cash in on the hype and curiosity that will be generated during this period. I dare say Sega won't commit to this by themselves I would definitely believe that Sony would definitely back them up if they allow it. 

Yeah my comments are a lot shorter but as someone who grew up as a Sega Kid during the 90s I have a lot of say when it comes to my once favorite Game Developer.

[WesleyWhiteside]

Sega recently removed most of their games on the App Store and their reason was because they felt that those games weren't "quality" titles (some of those games were actually pretty good). Then suddenly they release this new "Sonic Runners" full of bugs and loading screens and a 6% chance at unlocking exclusive limited timed characters....

Yeah, SEGA ha no respect for their consumers and I fear Nintendo will go down that path (they already have done some of these sins). My only concern is that it will never stop because people keep on buying crappy Sonic games and iOS games seem to make lots of money no matter how much they rip you off.

[DarkKnightCuron]

Im considering doing a video response to this. I wont be disagreeing with Chris really, but text comments only do so much to express my irritation with SEGA.