Games, Games, GAMES!! (Besides iDOLM@STER, of course XD)

[MetalPredat0r]

Good exposure to anime fighters, but RIP UNIEL and Blazblue. Melee and Marvel have gotten to be stale choices, but they'll sure rack in viewers. What's surprising is MKX and Tekken 7 -- what time will people have to train? Awkward territory, there~.

Well, Marvel is THE most hyped up game for EVO, so it pretty much has to be a mainstay and Melee is the fan-favorite for competitive Smashers, so it makes sense. I'm just happy that we got two Smash Bros. games this year.

As for MKX and TK7, Mortal Kombat X will be out for two months by then, so people have SOME time to practice. Tekken 7 is getting another location test for top players to practice for EVO.

[altuixde]

I just started playing Tactics Ogre for PSP. It's pretty fun, but a little complicated. The music's great.

[Cael K.]

Kickin' it old school with Persona for the Playstation.

... The game isn't very well balanced. It also takes longer than it should to do anything in the game.

[DeviantProtagonist]

Well, Marvel is THE most hyped up game for EVO, so it pretty much has to be a mainstay and Melee is the fan-favorite for competitive Smashers, so it makes sense. I'm just happy that we got two Smash Bros. games this year.

As for MKX and TK7, Mortal Kombat X will be out for two months by then, so people have SOME time to practice. Tekken 7 is getting another location test for top players to practice for EVO.

That would be SF4, but at the very least Marvel 2 isn't around -- I get the hype thing but the samey demographic gets sickening at times. Same logic goes especially with Melee due to actual presence, but what can you do?

Also, it still feels way short for two months. If anything, it just screams the notion that EVO NEEDED a new non-2D-plane-3rd-dimensional fighter for the sake of showiness... which says a whole lot about DoA, anyway.

[Accoun]

In other news, the main lineup for this year's EVO has been announced;

There is Tekken and Guilty Gear. That's enough for me - nothing else on that list interests me, haha. Although I wish they added Virtua Fighter, but the new revision of Final Showdown was IIRC announced only for arcades, so there's no "new version hype" push (and it's a minor revision anyway, not a big step up).

[TheTanStar]

The 6th Tetris: The Grand Master 3 (TGM3) Grand Master has been crowned, the first one outside of Japan.
It was worth staying up to see this live:
http://www.twitch.tv/kevinddr/c/5983832

For those who don't know exactly what's going on, here's a brief FAQ:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/12ab1UvFt_poBdQ6W6QK95-I8o0gE_FVjY6qku471gb0/edit

[Accoun]

Kicking myself for not watching it live. I followed Kitaru when I saw him streaming, but not Kevin and I missed it. ;_;
Unless he streamed like 4AM of my local time. Around when did it happen?

Still, congratulations to him.

[TheTanStar]

It was around 2am EST. Definitely hyped after a string of Master M+ runs using Kitaru's timing strat.

[Accoun]

So around 7-8:00 here. Kinda no wonder now.

[Accoun]

Voluntary retirement and further redundancies will hit Sega's workforce as it focuses on the "growth area" of Digital Games

Sega Sammy Holdings has outlined broad structural reforms, including both voluntary retirement and layoffs for its workforce, as it seeks to combat declining sales and dwindling profits by focusing on the "growth area" of Digital Games.

In a meeting of the board of directors held this morning, the company's Amusement Business was singled out for the most stringent measures, which will include a narrowing of its product lineup and the withdrawal or consolidation of many of its services.

Sadly, this kind of corporate-speak generally masks the human cost of such decisions, and that is certainly the case here. However, the emphasis for Sega Sammy right now seems to be on "voluntary retirement," which will be offered to around 120 employees in the Amusement Business over a two-week period starting February 9, 2015. The employees in question will be asked to take their retirement before the fiscal year ends in March.

"That Sega singled out 'Digital Games' is telling. In doing so, the company has snubbed the growth potential of both AAA console and physical retail"


Other employees caught up in the structural changes will be moved over to Digital Games, which is focused on PC and smartphone titles. Sega Sammy has identified Digital Games as a key growth area for the company, and one of its best hopes for regaining stability.


The fact that Sega's directors singled out "Digital Games" is telling. In doing so, the company has snubbed the growth potential of both AAA console and physical retail games, which are a separate sub-division of its Consumer Business.

There was evidence of that only last week, when Sega announced that The Creative Assembly's Alien: Isolation had reached 1 million sales. However, while the milestone was presented to the world in a positive light, it seems very likely that Sega had higher expectations for its most ambitious, and perhaps most expensive, release of 2014. Right now, 1 million sales in three months is far from the standard expected of a AAA hit, especially one based on a popular IP, and one that had been in development for at least four years.

Those conditions will certainly have contributed to another of Sega Sammy's measures to improve the business: the "streamlining" of its "local organisations" handling packaged software in Western markets. The company did not specifically mention redundancies, confirming only that Sega of America will be relocated from San Francisco to an unspecified location in Southern California before the summer.

A clearer picture of how the impact these changes will have on Sega's employees was provided in a document released this morning, in a section titled, "Future Outlook."

"The number solicited for voluntary retirement and such for the entire Group is scheduled to be around 300 (regular employees) and the early retirement benefit is expected as a result of this measure. The Group also plans to rightsize employees, including fixed-term employees."

"In terms of money made from games, Sega has looked more like a publisher of PC and digital software than console for a year at the very least"


Exactly what kind of retail and high-end console presence Sega will have after the changes is open to debate, but the shift to digital has been apparent in the company's financial reports for some time. And, with Sega, Digital Games still covers some popular IP: the Football Manager and Total War franchises have been consistent sellers for many years, while the potential of Relic's back-catalogue still hasn't been realised in the time since its acquisition.

And that's the salient point when contemplating a question like the one posed by the title of this article: based on the money it makes from video games, Sega has looked more like a publisher of PC and digital software than console for a year at the very least. Couple that with the huge popularity of smartphone games in its native territory of Japan, and it becomes harder to justify the high-risks and narrow margins of boxed console products.

On October 31, 2014, Sega expected to earn ¥370 billion ($3.1 billion) in revenue and ¥4 billion ($34 million) in profit by the end of the fiscal year - the latter figure a precipitous drop from the previous year's ¥30 billion ($255 million) profit.

It should be noted that, by the end of October, Alien: Isolation had been on sale for less than a month.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2015-01-30-is-sega-finished-with-console-retail

[JNiles]

Bah.  Smartphone games and pachinko machines it is, then.

edit: I was reminded that Sega currently owns ATLUS.  I am now freaked out.  My tagline is more applicable now than ever.

[MetalPredat0r]

So who else is ready for Sonic's big 25th Anniversary title only on iOS and Android? 

[Cael K.]

Just venting here, but Persona 1 sucks. Like, bad.

More or less, it's long for no other reason than to be long. The encounter rate is astronomically high, and each battle takes a few minutes to play out. The game balance is horrid, and naturally penalizes slow, damage soaking characters. I'm not gonna even call this hardcore, it's just a poorly balanced game that hides behind what it calls difficulty so that it can still call itself good. Which, by the way, the difficulty it says it has is all artificial, and it's not really that difficult.

... And I still wonder why I feel the need to finish this game. I actually go off and do something else while battles play themselves out.

[TheTanStar]

Been playing Neptunia Re;Birth 1 on PC. Man, what a difference in just the frame rate compared to the PS3 games. This is how the games should perform, not the almost slideshow of the PS3 titles.

The only major gripe I have is with the PC controls, it practically requires a controller. Thankfully, a DS3 works perfectly fine as a PC controller.

[Accoun]

edit: I was reminded that Sega currently owns ATLUS.  I am now freaked out.  My tagline is more applicable now than ever.

Persona Collection on Steam when?