Sega Is (Mostly) Dead
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?On Friday, Sega of America laid off a large number of employees, spurring rumors of a total shut-down. While that’s not true — Sega of America continues to exist, and will continue to make videogames — it’s only making four game franchises and nothing else, including Sonic, Aliens, Total War and Football Manager, according to Kotaku.
So no more Shenmues or Houses of the Dead. So long to Bayonetta, Phantasy Star, Golden Axe, and Jet Set Radio (which may no longer be coming to Xbox Live and PSN now). Goodbye to Panzer Dragoon, Virtua Fighter, Rez, Space Channel 5, and so much more.
I’m sure Sega can employ about 20 people and churn out a couple of shitty Sonic games per year and survive, but the Sega we knew and grew up with is effectively dead. Incidentally, I find it more likely that Nintendo will buy up Sega purely for the Sonic rights, and shut down everything else by 2013. Still, thank you, Sega. You may have been a ton of terrible decisions and games, but you gave me the Dreamcast and the original home port of Soul Calibur, and for that, I will always be grateful to you.
About The Author
Robert Bricken is one of the original co-founders of the site formerly known as Topless Robot, and its first editor-in-chief, serving from 2008-12. He brought the site to prominence with “nerd news, humor and self-loathing” as its motto, raising it from total internet obscurity to a readership in the millions, with help from his savage “FAQ” movie reviews and Fan Fiction Fridays. Under his tenure Topless Robot was covered by Gawker, Wired, Defamer, New York magazine, ABC News, and others, and his articles have been praised by Roger Ebert, Avengers actor Clark Gregg, comedian and The Daily Show correspondent John Hodgman, the stars of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Rifftrax, and others. He is currently the managing editor of io9.com. Despite decades as both an amateur and professional nerd, he continues to be completely unprepared for either the zombie apocalypse or the robot uprising.