In a Board of Directors meeting held today, Sega Sammy Holdings Inc. finalized measures for "structure reform" in SEGA Corporation. Reform initiatives include "improving efficiency" in both domestic and overseas businesses by narrowing down its product lineup and consolidating/downsizing some of its services. This affects us most notably in the digital games market, which SEGA designated as a "growth area" last year. According to the statement released today, "local organizations managing packaged game software in Western markets will be streamlined", and Sega will focus on "smartphone and PC online gaming".
The second measure to be taken is "soliciting voluntary retirement", which means 300 Sega Sammy employees, about 120 of which work in Sega Corporation itself, will leave the company this February. In order to "improve business efficiency", employees "will be repositioned in Digital Games and growth areas of Group mainly as development personnel".
Finally, big changes are in store for Sega of America.
- In the U.S., Sega of America, Inc. based in San Francisco will be relocated to Southern California by this summer and its existing office in San Francisco will be closed thereafter, which results in reducing fixed expenses, mainly in corporate functions. In addition, the Sonic and merchandising businesses will be reinforced to establish a structure which can generate stable profits.
Sega of America has released its own statement, in which SoA's president/COO John Cheng remarks the the move was "crucial to keep Sega operations moving forward throughout North America", and that the company will grow stronger because of it. Sega's game release schedule will not be affected by the move, and the Sonic Boom television series will continue to run as planned.
Despite the huge changes, Sega still projects a profit for the fiscal year ending March 2015, albeit a much smaller one than the previous fiscal year.
So what do you think? Sega seems overall very positive about these changes, but how about you? Tell us your opinion in the comments below.