Mystery Sega Announcement at E3

[ASSEMbler]

SEGA

Sega name will be used for older title "shovelware".
Expect lots of old titles done for every platform imaginable,
mainly DS and PSP ports of old sega games.

Expect a feeble attempt to continue with sports games, with ultimate failure.

Attempts to keep the once vital USA market going will fail,
with sega refocusing on games for Japan market only.

Expect Suzuki to beak away and form his own company,
to very mixed results.

Expect risky titles like JSR and nights to never
be given greenlight again. Expect mainstream
games that use the name but no longer the sega spirit.
Many generic RPG and SIM games for Japanese market.
Bland action titles with lukewarm success.

Lots more movie tie in games for the overseas markets.

Sega/Sammy arcade games will continue with no problems.
Atomiswave is basically a dreamcast anyway.

Expect sammy to decline financially, being a company of
few A list titles. I predict stock price tumble by 50%

Eventual fold of sega.com into sammy site.

Lucrative vending business real target of sammy.
(sega's ufo catcher and gashapon toys)

Merger but eventual closure of most sega arcades.

Eventual bankruptcy of sammy and sale of sega patents and licensing to stay afloat, eventual sammy company failure.


Nintendo:

Release of new system with DS compatability to little
fanfare compared to XBOX2 and PS3.

Reliance on nintendo titles.

DS VS PSP initial bottom feeder entry level success due to child market.

Quick price drops of PSP eventually hurting DS and GBA
severely.

Lowest console sell through yet with gamecube successor.

Murmers of software only approach after death of
Hiroshi Yamauchi.

Unable to keep up with market blitcz by multibillion dollar companies.


SONY:

PS3 has great inital sales, very highprice.
Titles on release day most ever for a system.
Requires online access and subscription
to work to full capacity, or phone in activation
of unit.

Several different types. Basic, and then high end
tivo etc type.

Intense anti piracy measures, and taking a cue from nintendo,
uses and non standard data media.
Reverse spin blue ray?

MICROSOFT:

Online oriented play with system
activation required online or by phone.
High capacity memory cards take
place of HD (of course not included)
1 GB memory cards.

Large sell through in USA, but even less
success in Japan.

Token sales in asia, with purchase
of Japanese companies to provide
asian support, with eventual failure.

Focus on movie title games that will
crush most creativity in the industry.

SEGA: Stripped like corpse
NOKIA: Backruptcy
SNK: Bankruptcy
SONY: Huge losses in consumer electronics
division negate ps2 and ps3 profits.
MICROSOFT: No XBOX 3 after years of
sales and massive hardware subsidies
losses. Launch of set top box
that combines TV and PC, Console,
movie rentals and music on demand.
NINTENDO: Smart engineering keeps
profits high, but market share shrinks to
10% of total market.

[SilverBolt]

Man are you ever negative assembler i don't see it going this far as your doom scenario :Hangman: :toimonster:

[Tachikoma]

As negative as it sounds, you can see it happening...

[Alchy]

Nokia aren't going bankrupt any time soon. They've got enough profits from their other phones to swallow the loss of the N-gage.

Also I don't see Sony using anything other than a fairly standard optical drive. They're going to have either dvd/blu-ray out of the box, and the games will be on one/both. Sony have always liked the whole "multi-media platform" thing. Giving PS3 a proprietary incompatibile drive form would restrict this.

Focus on movie title games that will
crush most creativity in the industry.

This is almost guaranteed. Expect to see game creativity dip majorly in/after the next few years, as game production costs rise and guaranteed profits become essential.

[GaijinPunch]

So basically Assembler -- everyone loses money this round? Sorry, unless EVERYONE plays their cards wrong, someone's at least got to break even.

In Economic theory they can all lose, but in reality, I just don't think it will happen.

[ASSEMbler]

I'm just saying...

When I said sega would go software only, you can't imagine the
hatemail.

[GaijinPunch]

I'm just saying...

When I said sega would go software only, you can't imagine the
hatemail.

Hehe -- I actually heard it on a very small Saturn mail list a few days before the official announcement came out. His friend worked at Sega at the time. Everyone was like "you're so full of shit!" but then a few days later he said, "told ya so.". The truth hurts.

[AntiPasta]

The truth hurts.

Like in that good old Saturn commercial.... "reality always hurts" :smt022
(oh, how dramatic)

[Garfield]

Man assembler, are you paving the way for the next great crash of the videogame industry, similar to the one in the early 80s?

Sounds like the Apocalypse is upon us! (Bonus point: which actor stars in the PS1 game Apocalypse?)

As much as I love Sega, the company is done ever since they announced the demise of the Dreamcast. During the DC days, I bought an average of 3 Sega titles for the DC per month, and they were all quality games. Now I buy an average of 3 Sega titles for PS2 AND Xbox combined per YEAR. The only excellent title Sega put out on PS2 is Virtua Fighter 4 (Evolution), and on Xbox is Panzer Dragoon Orta.

ESPN Videogames (aka Sega Sports) is also done just like you said. Only reason they sell decent on the Xbox is because they have online play. But now since EA Sports is on Xbox Live, I can see that EA Sports outsells ESPN by a ratio of 10:1. Personally I think the Sega Sports games are better, but most people got stuck to the Madden and NBA Live names.

[Greatsaintlouis]

Bruce Willis.