Peter Moore lays early 2000s Sega wide open

[ByTor, Prince of Ro’den]

http://www.polygon.com/2017/4/7/15222852/peter-moore-sega-yuji-naka

"Moore recounted to Glixel his futile efforts to demonstrate to Sega of Japan that the company’s relevance was declining. Sega’s American division filmed a focus group in late 2001 or early 2002 to get opinions from “a bunch of 18-, 19-year-olds” on how they saw gaming companies. The teens characterized Sega as “your grandad,” said Moore. “Used to be cool, but even he can’t remember why anymore.”

Next, Moore flew to Sega’s Japanese headquarters to present the data to executives and lead developers. As you might imagine, they were less than receptive:

Yuji Naka, Naka-san, maker of Sonic, is in the room. Now, he and I have a love/hate relationship on a good day. And we show him this, and it’s subtitled in Japanese, and when it comes to that piece he just [slams his hand on the table], ‘This is ridiculous. You have made them say this. Sega is the great brand, nobody would ever say this, you have falsified!’ He just gets in my face. So I said to the translator, ‘Tell him to fuck off.’ And the poor guy looks at me and says, ‘There's no expression in Japanese.’ I said, ‘I know there is.’ And that was it. That was the last time I ever set foot in there."

[WarTraveller]

And now they're sitting on a franchise with declining sales, inferior quality, a rabid fan base and a reputation so dire even Busby is shaking his head. And they wonder why no-one likes them. 

[F07E]

sega of japan is like nintendo of japan, they spend their merry little days cooped up in an office of yes men telling them what they wanna hear, and not what is actually happening. except sega throughout the course of the 2000's was so spat upon and dragged through the mud that it seems they are more receptive (if not TOO receptive at times) to critical feedback, and afraid of destroying the last little bit of their fans they still have after 2013, which is why things like the rom hacking scene has been left alone for the most part, if not downright plucked from to make new installments.

[Wulfsbane]

Honestly, this doesnt surprise me at all. While Yuji Naka always seemed to have a good idea of what's going on he seemed to be the type who couldnt handle criticism. If I remember correctly too, Iizuka got extremely angry at what he saw for Sonic Boom halfway through development. So much so he reportedly flipped a table in his anger. Sega was at its most successful when Adventure 1 & 2 were in development in San Fransisco (you can definitely see it in Adventure 2) and Sonic was at it's most popular in the late 90s when SatAM was still fresh in the minds of the consumer as well as Underground, which was received nicely at the time.

They brought in Christian Whitehead for Mania, so it seems like they are learning somewhat. They are bringing known fan developers, it can be a step in the right direction.

[WarTraveller]

4 hours ago, Wulfsbane said:

They brought in Christian Whitehead for Mania, so it seems like they are learning somewhat. They are bringing known fan developers, it can be a step in the right direction

Call me paranoid, but I think the sheer amount of failure they've experienced over the past few years has...humbled them somewhat. They're still idiots and arrogant (not to mention extremely behind the times), however. 

[Mike Arcade]

This doesn't surprise me regarding Sega, especially Yuji Naka though I do find the irony on how 4 years later Naka himself would bail on Sega during the development of Sonic 06. I mean with them never making an effort establishing their other series excluding Sonic and much later on Yakusa this is what happens when you don't make sure you have recognizable series. Granted while Yakuza is popular it's not a complete heavy hitter mainly due to how little marketing it's had internationally and don't get me started on how many Puyo Puyo games we've missed out on due to the lack of any porting excluding the upcoming ports of Puyo Puyo Tetris.

Look they had a lot of cool games before the Dreamcast was discontinued with a lot of passion put into them but a lot of the other publishers who made it great were outside of Sega like Capcom and SNK. While they had a lot of good hits and games they never invested on an ongoing one, while they do come out with the occasional pretty good game like Billy Hatcher and such they just can't hold themselves afloat alone anymore, I can easily prove that with them acquiring the devs of the Total War Series, not to mention Atlas which will keep them alive due to how big Atlas as developers have become as unlike Sega, they actually kept GOING with the Shin Megami Tensei Series which lead to the Persona Sub-Series and in turn their famous 3rd and 4th entries.

Sega fumbled internationally with the Saturn, but did very well in Japan for the Saturn overall along with the Dreamcast. As developers they hit their A-Game but lost it afterwards, they are fine when they do whatever passion project they make (Chu Chu Rocket, Samba De Amigo, Crazy Taxi, etc.) but otherwise as a business can't hold themselves well, it's why they almost went bankrupt in the first place back then.

They won't be going away as publishers that's for sure, I mean with Sonic there are many things they could do to make that series better, for themselves on the other hand that's another story entirely to be a better company. The main thing they need to do is bring back older series and make new ones that become recurring and not to be afraid to have different takes on them as it worked for Capcom, SNK, and one of their own acquired developers Atlas.

[MoKat]

On 4/9/2017 at 10:35 PM, Wulfsbane said:

 If I remember correctly too, Iizuka got extremely angry at what he saw for Sonic Boom halfway through development. So much so he reportedly flipped a table in his anger.

If that's true, I honestly don't blame him for reacting like that.

[SonicSatamX93]

So even back then, SEGA knew about Sonic needing tweaking to stay relevant and they just in a sense spat in their face when brought up. Wow...

I can't say I'm surprised seeing where SEGA is now, but to think they were that stubborn even back then is just appalling. And they wonder why Nintendo has blown them into the weeds.