Announcing the move at an investors meeting in Tokyo, Sega COO Tetsu Kayama said that it was designed to reduce costs and give Sega more control over its operations in the region, particularly in the field of marketing its titles to European audiences.
We have a strong game brand in the European market, especially in the U.K.,” according to Kayama.We’re trying to create a situation where we can break even at unit sales of 2 million in Europe.
At present, most Sega titles for the PS2 are distributed in Europe by SCEE (with a few games being released by Acclaim), with the bulk of titles on other platforms being handled by Infogrames. Several commentators have suggested that this situation has weakened the Sega brand in Europe, as marketing for the titles has been uncoordinated.
Sega’s current projections see 2.62 million units of the company’s software being sold in Europe in the 12 months ended March 2003.
Source: Gamesindustry.biz, Bloomberg
