As a long time fan of SEGA for both their historic games and video game consoles, today isn’t a fun one in the entertainment industry as SEGA has announced it will be cutting jobs in order to focus on its publishing business for digital content with some packaged retail games from the Sonic the Hedgehog, Football Manager, Aliens, and Total War. Any other planned retail games will be cancelled.
SEGA for the past couple of years has been doing very well with its digital content, especially those that have reached the mobile platform. SEGA All-Star Racing, Sonic the Hedgehog Episode I and Sonic CD are just a few titles SEGA has published on mobile platforms and have received much love from the gaming community. Its retail games, on the other hand, have not been doing as great as sales have been steadily declining.
What does this mean for you, the mobile gamer? This can certainly be seen as good news for the mobile gaming community as it nearly guarantees more SEGA titles will be made available on mobile and digital platforms. We’ve only received the tip of the SEGA iceberg as they can certainly bring other big games onto mobile platforms like Crazy Taxi and the newly announced, Jet Set Radio HD. They have quite the stable of past successful games they can optimize for mobile platforms.
I know I for one will be ponying up my cash for Sonic the Hedgehog: Episode II when its released on iOS, Android, and WP7 to show my support for the company whose games I’ve played for nearly all of my life. Not only is the game looking fantastic, but it’ll also serve as my way showing respect to one of my favorite video game publishers.