Sega restructures

By Tom Bramwell Published 9 July, 2003

Cuts and pastes R&D studios, and names new president of AM2.

Sega is planning to close four of its nine R&D studios and build two fresh ones as part of a restructuring effort, which will be fleshed out at the company's executive meeting later this month with plans going into effect in October. Apparently the idea behind the reorganisation is to produce best-selling games more efficiently.

Meanwhile, Sega has also named the new president of Sega AM2, one Hiroshi Kataoka, who has been working as director of AM2's top R&D division since last year, and has been involved in various titles from Space Harrier in the arcades during the 1980s to Virtua Fighter 4: Evolution, which was released just last month.

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About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (7) Latest comment 9 years ago

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  • gravity0 #1 9 years ago

    So, what's happened to Yu Suzuki?

    Edit - Nevermind. From Magic-box:
    "- Sega announced that Hiroshi Kataoka has been assumed the president of Sega-AM2. Previously Yu Suzuki is the president of Sega-AM2, he is now organizing two new in-house development studios for Sega."
    Edited by 1 at 09/07/03 @ 11:20

  • Zero Beat #2 9 years ago

    Whichever studios get the cut, there's going to be a lot of broken gamers hearts. (please don't let it be Smilebit, please don't let it be Smilebit, please don't let it be Smilebit)
    Edited by 1 at 09/07/03 @ 12:56

  • mal #3 9 years ago

    Edit - Nevermind. From Magic-box:

    No no no. Nevermind - from Nirvana ;)

    Not sure what this means for AM2. I suspect that the only reason I liked some of their games was Yu Suzuki.

  • sopaman #4 9 years ago

    Smilebit is one of the best development teams in Sega, so i hope they don't close it. They should close Wow entertainment instead, they don't seem to be doing anything interesting lately.
    After all, they're not firing people, they're just restructuring them in different teams inside Sega. Anyway, it's obvious AM#2 and the Sonic Team will remain untouched.
    Edited by 1 at 09/07/03 @ 13:43

  • Shivoa #5 9 years ago

    Smilebit are sure to stay.

    If we have to pick 5 then I'm thinking AM2 (VF4 and obvious from announcement), Sonic Team (Sonic titles), Smilebit (all Seag's Xbox efforts, or so it seems) , Overworks (Skies of Arcadia), and UGA (Rez).

    Of the other 4 I can't even think of the name of 2 of them so unless someone reminds me of what they've worked on recently (ie Dreamcast onwards) I don't really mind if they're combined into 2 teams with one under the control of Yu Suzuki.

  • PPPK #6 9 years ago

    Ooh - this'll be interesting. I think Suzuki is fantastic - so it'll be interesting what he'll come up with. His games (Virtua Fighter, Virtua Racing, Virtua Cop, F355, Shenmue) have always been different to Kataoka's (FV, 18 Wheeler, Outtrigger). I wonder who'll be taking the helm of the next Virtua Fighter - allegedly the last in the series.

    Here's hoping for a revival of Virtua Racing.....TIME BONUS!

    PPPK :-P

  • skalmanxl #7 9 years ago

    Hmm, while UGA and Smilebit make truly special games, they don't exactly rack up big sells. Which is why Sega is doing this restructure.

    Studios performing well are AM2, Rosso, Sonic Team, Smilebit, Amusement Vision.

    Sure, Smilebit will probably stay. But as I see it, Hitmaker, Wow, UGA isn't doing as well as one might hope. And whats Visual Concepts doing these days? Don't they put the 2kx titles to other companies for development?