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| http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?o...46&Itemid=2Sega Seeks Western Developers to Update IPby Colin CampbellFriday, 24 June 2005Western developers are being courted to create games for Sega, based on theJapanese company's cla
ssic characters and IP. The plan was outlined to NextGeneration by Sega of America president and COO Simon Jeffery.Sega gas yet to officially announce games for next generation consoles,above and beyond Condemned and Full Auto for Xbox 360, set for launc
h laterthis year. But video footage of games based on Sonic the Hedgehog, VirtuaFighter, Afterburner and House of the Dead have been for shown behind closeddoors.Jeffery said that Sega's IP is being seeded among developers in Europe andNorth America in o
rder to give its products broader global appeal. Thecompany bought UK developer Creative Assembly earlier this year, followingthat up with a publishing deal with Canada's Silicon Knights."Over the last year, we've seen a major shift in company strategy. F
or theWest we should not be relying on Japanese product any more. We should sourcewestern product for the western market and that's what we've been doing forthe last six months."He added, "We're going to be announcing a lot of product over the next sixto
12 months which is being originated in the West. The western gamingmarkets have developed enormously over the last five years. The kinds ofgames being made in Japan tend to largely appeal to Japanese gamers. We areno longer doing the typical Japanese comp
any thing of just bringing Japaneseproduct to the western market."Classic SegaBut Sega isn't just creating new IP among western development partners. Hesaid, "We are building new properties in the West, for the West, but we arealso taking classic Sega pro
perties and giving them to western developers tobuild and that is something that will work in our favor. That is somethingwe'll be announcing in the months ahead."Although Jeffery would not give specifics, he confirmed that Sega's biggestnames, including
Sonic, would be joining the next generation caravan sometime in late 2006. "There's every likelihood that there will be Sonic gameson the next generation platforms. We would be insane not to do that," hesaid. "But when platforms are introduced to market t
hey tend to be expensivewith limited numbers of hardware available at retail. They tend to be pickedup by early adopters and the games we've announced are aimed at thatconsumer."Mass market gamers come later in the hardware's life-cycle. We're veryhopeful
that the hardware companies can get the numbers into the market sixto 12 months into the life of the consoles, so we'd be releasing about thattime, ideally coinciding with a Holiday."Ups and downsJeffery says Sega has a newfound confidence, following its
exit from thehardware business and an indifferent beginning as a software maker. "We'repretty confident about where we are in the world right now. We've had someups and downs."We emerged from not being a hardware company to being a software companywith a
lot of flamboyance but then maybe didn't quite live up toexpectation. We didn't really plan out our platform strategy widely enough."He says rivals lack Sega's creative edge. "A lot of the leading gamecompanies are almost becoming packaged goods companie
s - they are driven bylicenses and sequels. We see a great opportunity for Sega to be buildingoriginal games. We have a fantastic portfolio of IP that we can update andcontemporize, rather than just trying to build our company around movielicenses or spor
ts franchises."He said that online would be a "focal part of our business" but scotchedrecent rumors of a Sonic MMOG. "Some fan somewhere has way too much time ontheir hands," he said. "We are investing in the online space but Sonic is abrand that skews t
o the young and traditionally younger gamers are not partof the MMOG experience. I'd be amazed if we did that. It's nothing that Segahas planned."
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