Sega Re-branded as Sega Games, Leaves Console Market

It’s a sad day for Sega fans today as their parent company, Sega Sammy Holdings, has announced that Sega will be ditching the console market and will now focus on making mobile games.

Sega was already going through a corporate restructuring with 300 layoffs in their Western Publishing division, and closing down of their San Francisco office. Apparently for Sega Sammy this wasn’t enough to recuperate losses and have decided to change focus for the troubled Sega Corporation.

Sega will be re-branded as Sega Games and will now focus their efforts in developing and publishing mobile games. The naming convention itself is strange considering SEGA is a amalgam of the words “service” and “games”, so with Sega Games it effectively translates to: Service Games Games.

On a bittersweet note, in an interview with 4gamer, Sonic Team lead Takashi Iizuka reveals that despite Sega leaving the console market, Team Sonic will still persist and continue to release home console games. Iizuka states:

“Personally, I don’t plan to stop Sonic for home-video game consoles. Don’t worry about them! And enjoy!”

Here’s hoping for a brighter outlook for Sega, as I was personally raised on Sonic games, and I do hope they are able to be successful in their future endeavors. Oh, and on a final note, despite being owned by Sega Corporation, Atlus will not be affected by the restructuring of Sega.