There’s been a lot of celebration around SEGA lately, what with their 60th Anniversary and all; but sadly, it’s not all been cause for partying. SEGA has published extraordinary losses from its amusements division (thanks to COVID-19), leading them to outright sell off the majority of their arcade business to Genda Inc (formerly Midas Entertainment). SEGA will still be producing arcade games, and their arcade centres will still be plastered with the SEGA logo, but those centres are Genda’s now.
That’s not all though, as it’s now emerged that SEGA have asked 650 employees to “voluntarily retire”. Supposedly those who accept the offer to retire by February 2021 will receive a “payment of extraordinary retirement allowances and reemployment support”. SEGA’s executives are also getting hit by the changes, though not nearly as severely as those losing their jobs; instead, the company’s Senior Executive Vice President and Senior Vice President will have 20% and 10% taken out of their monthly salaries respectively… which isn’t exactly much for the salaries they’re probably on. The Representative Director will see a slightly more substantial cut of 30%.
It’s been a rough year for businesses across the world this year, and given their presence in Japan’s arcade scene, it’s not surprising that SEGA got hit hard; but the layoffs are disappointing news all the same. It’s also very likely that SEGA’s mooted ‘Fog Gaming’ concept may not be going ahead anymore, but time will tell if Genda choose to adopt that instead.
When Tracker isn’t playing SEGA games, he’s talking about SEGA games. Or drawing about SEGA games. Or all of the above. You can also catch him over on Twitter.
Tags: arcade, japan, Layoffs Posted in News | Comments Off on SEGA Request 650 Employees To Retire “Voluntarily”, Cut Salaries of Executives By Up To 30%
The SEGA AGES klaxon rings out once again; from the sounds of things, G-LOC Air Battle will be the next game to join M2’s lineup of superb Switch ports.
Somewhat of an After Burner spin-off, G-LOC was perhaps most well-remembered for its absolutely ridiculous deluxe cabinet, the R360, which rotated the player’s seat all over the place as you played the game. Sadly we somehow doubt this port will magically spawn an R360 in your home, but we can dream.
This news comes from Famitsu via JapaneseNintendo; apparently the game will boast a new “AGES Mode”, though what exactly that doesn’t isn’t clear just yet. There’ll also be the standard difficulty level toggle, and online rankings to compete in.
An official confirmation from SEGA’s Twitter, as is usually the case, probably isn’t too far off now. That might also shed some extra light on what exactly AGES Mode changes.
When Tracker isn’t playing SEGA games, he’s talking about SEGA games. Or drawing about SEGA games. Or all of the above. You can also catch him over on Twitter.
SEGA has confirmed that the Mega Drive Mini is currently planned to have one game per series – so don’t expect every Sonic game to be on there, as with most Mega Drive collections. The possibility was floated at SEGA Fes 2018 when the console was announced, but this is a more solid confirmation of the plan.
As a result of this, SEGA has decided to open up some of the game choice to the fans – asking them which game from the Sonic the Hedgehog, Puyo Puyo and Shining series should appear on the console. The options are:
Sonic the Hedgehog vs Sonic the Hedgehog 2
Puyo Puyo vs Puyo Puyo Tsu
Shining Force vs Shining Force II
The poll is available as a Twitter thread and on the Mega Drive Mini website. It’s worth mentioning also that something like Puyo’s choice may not matter for us in the West, as the system is planned to have different games per region – so we’ll probably get Puyo Puyo in the guise of Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine regardless.
When Tracker isn’t playing SEGA games, he’s talking about SEGA games. Or drawing about SEGA games. Or all of the above. You can also catch him over on Twitter.
SEGA’s very own fan-festival SEGA FES is returning once again, with the 2019 event taking place in Japan on March 30th and 31st. This year it’ll be held at the Bellesalle Akihabara in Tokyo. Entry is free for anyone who wants to attend (though we imagine most of our readers will need to factor “plane ticket to Japan” into that).
Last year’s SEGA FES saw some pretty sizeable announcements, including the SEGA Mega Drive Mini, a new Sakura Wars title, Shemue I&II HD, the SEGA AGES series for Nintendo Switch and more. What’s lined up in terms of panels and such this year is yet to be announced, but it’s something for SEGA fans of all kinds to get excited for, and we’ll keep you updated with scheduling announcements and such when they become available.
When Tracker isn’t playing SEGA games, he’s talking about SEGA games. Or drawing about SEGA games. Or all of the above. You can also catch him over on Twitter.
SEGA Sammy are in the process of moving to a new headquarters building in Ousaki, Tokyo. On September 11th 2018 they also held a press conference and took press on a guided tour of the new premises. The move will be completed by next month and there’s some fascinating memorabilia on display in the new building. Check out a selection of photos from inside SEGA Sammy’s new headquarters courtesy of Dual Shockers. It’s worth visiting their article on the new building as they have even more photos of the interior.
Tomorrow (April 14th), SEGA’s two day SEGA FES 2018 event starts at the Bellesalle Akihabara in Tokyo – and SEGA of America have actually made note of the event, teasing a huge announcement SEGA fans “won’t want to miss”.
It was already stated that some kind of announcement would be made at the event, but previous announcements of this sort have been targeted more towards a Japanese audience (such as the reveal of SEGA AM2’s Soul Reverse for arcades). SEGA America’s promotion of the announcement is a surprise – and indicates something major could be on the way. (more…)
When Tracker isn’t playing SEGA games, he’s talking about SEGA games. Or drawing about SEGA games. Or all of the above. You can also catch him over on Twitter.
Puyo Puyo is now officially recognised by the Japan eSports Union, meaning Puyo players can now get a license required to compete in for-money tournaments in the country through this review for eSport acknowledgement statuses (due to gambling laws). This means it joins the ranks of Street Fighter V, Tekken 7, Call of Duty WW2, and several other titles in Japan’s eSports scene.
The first tournament will be held at SEGA FES 18, taking place on April 14 in Akihabara, Japan. There’ll be a 1 Million Yen prize for the winner (that’s around £6,750), with an overall prize pot of 1.65 Million yen (Around £11,150).
[ Source: SEGA, but the robust translation comes courtesy of GSK on Twitter. GSK regularly translates interesting video game information, so check them out! ]
When Tracker isn’t playing SEGA games, he’s talking about SEGA games. Or drawing about SEGA games. Or all of the above. You can also catch him over on Twitter.
Awesome merchandise alert! The Japanese clothing store ‘Hardcore Chocolate’ are selling Shenmue and Fighting Vipers t-shirts.
You can see the Shenmue shirt by clicking here and the Fighting Vipers shirt by clicking here. Check out those back prints!
Both shirts are selling for 3800 yen (around £22.60 in sterling) but without a knowledge of Japanese you might have a hard time navigating the webstore.
BBC Earth (the natural history division of BBC Worldwide) has partnered with SEGA to bring 2 attractions to the United States and Japan.
The attractions will be a “unique visitor experience” that fuses nature with technology. Sonic CD: The Experience? I wish.
The attraction will be a 4000 square meter, multi-level visitor experience. The BBC have said the attraction will allow visitors to “undertake an individual adventure using their eyes, ears, hands and minds to explore the wonders of the natural world”.
The attractions will launch this year and exact locations will be announced in the coming months. Other locations for the attraction are expected to follow but there is no indication of a UK launch at this time.
SEGA’s theme-park Tokyo Joypolis in Odaiba, Japan is getting a new Sonic-themed attraction called Sonic Athletics. The new attraction is an 8 player running game that requires the player to actually run on a treadmill. You compete with other players by simply being the fastest runner. Check out some images of the attraction below:
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