SEGA closes most European offices, focussing on core titles

Date Posted	Author
1st July 2012	Matt Bailey

SEGA's video games finances haven't looked good in a while, an in a demonstration of this the company this week announced that it is closing European offices in France, Germany, Spain and Benelux, as well as their Australian HQ. SEGA Europe's London HQ remains, and will work with distributors Koch, Level03 and 5 Star to get their games released in those territories now without a local office. Koch are already working with companies such as Square Enix and Codemasters to cover some regions of mainland Europe.

The changes are effective from today, 1st July, and come at a time when SEGA will also be focusing on its "key IP" - core titles such as the Sonic, Total War and Football Manager brands, as well as the licensed Aliens games. The company is still working on a range of new and existing digital games, such as The Cave with Ron Gilbert and Double Fine, although we don't yet know what their future partnership will be with Platinum Games. The two have work together extensively in recent years on the likes of Bayonetta and Vanquish, but next title Anarchy Reigns was recently pushed to next year, and the relationship between developer and publisher is looking more shakey.

With such a rich heritage it seems a shame to see SEGA in a position where it is unable to create big new ideas for boxed copy games, especially considering it was a hardware manufacturer with a range of first-party studios to compete with Nintendo and Sony just over a decade ago. There's a lot of existing franchises laying dormant that the company doesn't seem able to take advantage of right now. Sadly we also won't be seeing the company at Gamescom in Cologne next month as they're skipping the show (along with THQ, Nintendo and Microsoft), but hopefully we'll see the company get back on track in time for the all-important run up to Christmas.

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