SEGA Uninterested in Being Acquired by Sony, Microsoft

Glad to hear it, let SEGA be SEGA

Good. We don't need SEGA becoming the next Atari.

SEGA always talks about the great support Microsoft has with them, but they weren't the ones who helped Yakuza grow into the franchise it is today. Shame they have such animosity towards Sony.

"not now".

Lets not forget BluePoint and Bungie said similar months before closing the deal with Sony. Doubt they will be selling anytime soon, but would not be shocked if it happens in the next few years either.

If Xbox was smart, they would simply buy a large stake at Sega Sammy Holdings instead of going for an acquisition, though.

Interesting note that was not added to this article (from PureXbox)

The COO also reportedly mentioned that Microsoft values SEGA more than other platform operators.

It sounds like Sega is actually not very happy right now with Sony or Nintendo.

I don't like any of these acquisitions to happen. The only one that still stuck to my mind is if Sony could buy Square Soft back in 2000 when Enix first had rejected merging with them.
Just a personal opinion that is still stuck in my mind since I can't remember when!!!

Good... Let everyone play the games!!

It's actually sort of comforting knowing Microsoft was planning on buying a bunch of these big Japanese companies behind the scenes, and it didn't work out for them.

Nobody is interested in being bought and everyone values their freedom until someone offers to pay a premium price. I don't blame Sega, but it's one of those "what else are they going to say" type of quotes.

And Sony have had all the Yakuza games on PS+ Extra and Persona 5 was available for free for plus members in ps5 for ages. It means nothing.

That’s fine. Just don’t want xbox to remove these games from PS and nintendo. Just stay Multiplatform and everyone is happy

I read somewhere that there are WAYYYY too many stipulations and regulations surrounding a foreign company purchasing any part of a Japanese company. So Microsoft would have to subject itself to too much scrutiny in order to be allowed to own any part of SEGA. Here is a 2019 article explaining it in broad strokes. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-economy-regulation-idUSKCN1SX05F

As for Playstation, I think SEGA may still feel some resentment after Sony (and SEGA mismanagement) literally pushed them out of the console wars with the PS2 killing off the Dreamcast and any other chance at hardware again. Imagine having to buy a 4th system in order to play SEGA games.

@Tharsman I agree, the addition of the "not now" at the end makes the statement much less decisive than a straight "no" and leaves the door open for it to happen in the future, possibly after the dust has settled on other deals.
I'd also agree that it definitely sounds like both Sony and Nintendo have a bit of work to do on their relationship with Sega.

I feel like this could be the inspiration of a sub-story in a future Like A Dragon game.

Shady American Businessman: Come on Ichiban! Come work for me! I'll make it worth your while!😉

Ichiban: For the last time no! Go bother someone else!

Shady American Businessman: Fine another time then...Hey Square! Want to work for me!? How about you Capcom!?

Ichiban: Just how loaded is this guy? Something's fishy about him.

I'll let RGG finish the rest.

@NomNom Sony crushed their console business, Microsoft help them when in failed.

Good!! I definitely don’t want to have my
Choice made as to which console I play on and Sega games would definitely make me have to think things over!

Microsoft built the OS for Dreamcast and Sega supported the original Xbox in a way that not a lot of other third parties did.

I suppose Nintendo had always been the historical enemy and Sony were the ones who eventually knocked them out of the hardware business.

It still does seem a bit odd to specifically come out and say that they have the best relationship with Xbox though. Almost like corporate flirting.

Third party acquisitions/exclusives should not be a thing. That’s what first party studios are for. If a console company can’t succeed on what they already have, then they shouldn’t be in business.

Period.

@__jamiie they got paid big money to bring a lot of their games to game pass ... they are under contract to talk good about MS even if they actually don't like Nintendo or Sony for their history.

It's like when Bandai was under contract with MS just a few years ago and they constantly said Game Pass was helping business when in reality it wasn't.

Hopefully it stays that way for a long time.

I’m surprised Sony hasn’t invested in some of these publishers like they did with Epic.

Buy a good chunk of shares. If they get sold off they’re in for a pay day, if not let them stay independent & make some money on the backend. Might even put Sony in a good position if SEGA were looking to be bought in the future.

The hope is of course that everything is going to stay the same, but that doesn’t seem likely. Eventually a lot of these publishers will just fall under a few umbrellas.

Nice to see Jimbob is talking to publishers about finance....

How about some PS5 games, Jimbob, or shall we all just buy a 2nd hand PS4 Pro and carry on?

@GymratAmarillo But the article specifically mentions Sarah Bond and Phil Spencer as he talks about his love for the way they approach games.

Which contract are you referring to? The one where they have to say good things about Xbox? Or is that just something you've added to try to prove a point.

Are you saying that Sega's relationship with all platform holders is exactly the same? Isn't it possible they actually do prefer working with Microsoft to either Nintendo or Sony?

@LightningLeader Agreed, I can't wait to play Starfield and Indiana Jones on my PS5 😁

@MaikonCSGarcia you're acting like they didn't fail due to their own incompetence in the console market. They launched a console, an add on to that console, and another console, too soon from each other, destroying their own market.

@__jamiie No, what I'm saying is there is 3 companies and only one is paying you millions, who are you going to talk good about? It's just how business works.

Even when SEGA has reasons to NOT like Sony or Nintendo because of their history the biggest reason to talk good about MS is the money they are giving them without compromise their products (because they will still sell in either switch or ps)

@LightningLeader you mean like Bethesda? Phil kept them multi Plat... Oh wait no, they didn't. Lmao

Cool good to know.word up son

Struggling to see how it's Sonys or Nintendos fault that Sega dropped out of the console business. N64 and Gamecube wasn't doing huge numbers at the time of the Dreamcast. Can't expect Sony to come out and say oh we won't be putting out our new PS2 console in 2000, 2001 and 2002 because instead we want to delay it a few years so Dreamcast can sell a ton more consoles. I've read over the years that the problem with Sega was the Saturn and the way it went about its business in 94 which may have had a knock on effect to the downfall of Sega in the very early 00s. Maybe there's something I'm missing and if there is, excuse my ignorance, what do I know im just a gamer. For the record I had a Saturn in the 90s and a Dreamcast in 2000, thoroughly enjoyed them both

@Tharsman It could be about the multiplatform goal.

https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2021/05/sega_wants_persona_dev_atlus_to_do_simultaneous_worldwide_launches

It almost sounds like the situation was: SEGA wanted Atlus games to be multiplatform, Nintendo wanted SMT to remain Nintendo exclusive, Sony wanted Persona to remain PS exclusive and then Microsoft came along with a load of money saying "you can develop on whatever platforms you want as long as it's day 1 on Game Pass."

But if that was the case Persona 3 Reload and Metaphor: ReFantazio would've be coming to Switch but they're not which suggests Microsoft created Nintendo exclusion deals for those 2 games.

So it looks more like SEGA are being acquired but they can't announce it yet because of Activision.

There is now a close business relationship with Sega. It could be that Microsoft paused negotiations until the ABK deal is complete in cases it jeopardised it.

@LightningLeader idk why you believe this when it's very publicly shown that he made both Indiana Jones and Redfall, which were originally supposed to be multiplat, are now Xbox exclusives.

They can do it, sure, but let's not act like Microsoft, and Phil is some sort of saint in this industry.

Let's also not act like it's surprising Sony is opposing this deal, if next year Sony decided to purchase Take-Two, effectively owning both Grand Theft Auto and 2K, that Phil/Microsoft would not stand in Sony's way to oppose this type of acquisition. Some titles need to remain independent/Third party.

@NomNom Sony couldn't afford to buy Take Two.

Good, they should stay how they are...and maybe announce Shenmue 4. kthxbye

@NomNom @LightningLeader I've just seen some sites like IGN reporting that Phil Spencer decided in November 2021 that all future Bethesda games are going to be Xbox exclusive.

@__jamiie completely misses the point of the comment. 😮‍💨

@NomNom I didn't miss the 'Earth shatteringly wise' point of your insightful comment. I just found that it treads the same, boring ground that most hypothetical comments about this saga have done.

@__jamiie so why even comment?

@NomNom To try and end the whole hypothetical back and forth.

Nintendo Life would go bankrupt considering they puke Sega article as if it was a Nintendo brand.

Sony didn’t kill Sega.

What killed Sega was its infighting. SOA/SOE and SOJ basically operated as two different companies for years. And worse still they actually acted as competition to each other.

I’ll use Nintendo as an example for what works. NCJ and NOA/NOE have always had a dom-sub relationship. NCJ calls the shots, NOA and NOE implement those plans and handle marketing in their territories. But they never call shots. They make recommendations to NCJ for their respective markets and NCJ often takes their advice in terms of game design ideas. But don’t get it twisted. At the end of the day, they always submitted to NCJ’s wishes. There was never any pushback, no intentional sabotage, no back talk. Once a call is made, NOA and NOE always fell in line. And importantly, Nintendo always saw relatively good success in every market it participated. So there was no ambition or rivalry between branches.

By comparison, SEGA home console business was in a weird place in the 16bit era. The Megadrive/Genesis FLOPPED hard in Japan right from the get go. The previous 8 bit systems (like the Master System and SG-1000) had also flopped in Japan. Sega’s real power in Japan was in the arcade. This went on for years.

By comparison, the Genesis was doing ok in the US in 1989 and 1990. The Megadrive was building success in Europe based off the Master System’s relative success in that market as well. Then 1991 came around. SOJ brought in Tom Kalinske to take over operations for the US market and by extension in Europe as well since that was how Sega organized things back then.

Kalinske defied company tradition by packing in what everyone at Sega considered their best game (Sonic the Hedgehog) and also slashed prices for both the US and Europe to build market share. He also went into aggressive marketing mode for both markets, including directly attacking Nintendo. This was unfathomable to the old Japanese men who ran SOJ; this wasn’t how they operated. They relented to Kalinske’s plans just to see if it would work.

Short story, it worked flawlessly and Genesis/Megadrive sales skyrocketed in both the US and Europe and dethroned Nintendo for a few years.

This led to a complicated situation. Yes SOJ was technically in charge of Sega as a whole but SOJ couldn’t find success in Japan with its home console. Whereas SOA and SOE were doing crazy good in their respective markets. The teams at both SOA and SOE started seeing theirselves as the true leaders of Sega corporation since they were the ones who were actually successful.

Corporate infighting started as the old men at SOJ started demanding more control over their rambunctious American and European child branches who were getting too big for their own britches. SOJ implemented plans to gain back full control of its entire company with the Saturn.

There’s more to it, but this post is long enough. If you get the chance read “Console Wars.” It goes into a lot of details about just how mismanaged Sega was a whole back then.

The point is that this inside war going between SOA and SOJ led to a bunch of people (on the American side) getting fired or just quitting. And some bad decisions being made with the Saturn and later on the Dreamcast, including a notorious lawsuit between 3DFX and Sega that Sega basically lost and lots of money had to be paid.

@NomNom Sure but Sony paying stores to put their consoles on the front of the store and yours in the back did not help...

Sony always wanted to be alone in the market and has always happy to do anything on their power to get there. You will get enemys by doing it.

IF they got what they wanted and Microsoft had closed Xbox on 2014 ( as they almost did it) do u think Microsoft would hold no grudge for Sony? No, u would harm them in any opportunity u get.

Sega won't sell to Microsoft unless they go tits up, which i doubt considering the huge franchises they own. Maybe i'm being naive but I just can't see a huge Japanese third party selling to Microsoft, makes no sense in the long run.

People are also saying 'Well Microsoft helped SEGA when Sony crushed their console business!!!!" Eh? Theres no Sentimentality in business; that's naive.