Sega Posts Losses, Announces Publishing Deal with PlatinumGames

From the game reviewer.

As reported by Game Daily, Sega Sammy posted major annual losses on Tuesday. The holdings company, which is comprised both of videogame publisher Sega and pachinko manufacturer Sammy, saw a fall in sales from 528.24 billion yen ($5.04 billion) to 458.98 billion yen ($4.38 billion) during the course of the 2007 fiscal year, which resulted in a net loss of 52.47 billion yen ($501 million) as opposed to the net profit of 43.46 billion yen ($415 million) from the previous year.

Sega Sammy cited rising fuel prices and the increasing availability of the current generation of consoles as the primary reasons for pachinko and arcade divisions losses. Though the games division’s sales were up, the Japanese region posted losses. The company is currently projecting sales of 470 billion yen ($4.48 billion) for a net profit of 5 billion yen ($47.4 million) for the 2008 fiscal year, but Sega Sammy is cutting costs in the meantime, as the entertainment group will cut around 400 jobs and close about 110 facilities.

News was not all bad from Sega this week, however. None of this financial woe is currently expected to have any effect on any of the games under development. On Thursday, Sega announced a publishing deal with PlatinumGames Inc., formerly known as SEEDS Inc., which was founded by a number of key figures from Capcom’s erstwhile development studio Clover. The deal involves the development of four titles by PlatinumGames, though details were only available for three of the upcoming games.

First is MADWORLD, directed by Shigenori Nishikawa. Sega describes the game as “an inventive hyper-violent third-person action game” and given the stylized graphical style and mostly monochromatic color scheme copiously splashed with blood, one can’t help but think of Frank Miller when looking at it. Though the game is Nishikawa’s directorial debut, his previous credits include Dino Crisis 2, Resident Evil for the Gamecube and Resident Evil 4.

Sega also announced Bayonetta, directed by Hideki Kamiya, whose previous directorial efforts include such titles as Devil May Cry, Viewtiful Joe and Okami. Bayonetta represents Kamiya’s most recent effort to “push… the limits of the action genre.” While little is known about the game’s mechanics at this point, few directors have proven themselves as well-suited to the task as Kamiya.

The third and final game Sega named was Infinite Line (working title), directed by Hifumi Kouno, who previously worked on series such as the survival-horror Clock Tower and the mech nerd’s wet dream Steel Battalion. Again refusing to be relegated to a specific genre, Kouno’s Infinite Line is a sci-fi RPG that features 200 characters and control of a fleet of highly customizable spaceships.

The fourth game in the deal has not yet been named, though Sega revealed that it would be directed by Shinji Mikami, whose works include Resident Evil 4 as a director and Devil May Cry and Killer 7 as a producer.

Most of these games currently have a release target of 2009, but we’re already pretty excited about the sort of games this well-qualified collection of developers could create. It could certainly be a much needed shot in the arm for Sega, even if it will likely come too late for the 2008 fiscal year. Either way, thanks to this deal, gamers have a lot to look forward to, and we’ll keep continue to report on these titles as more information is released.