The Sega of America Inc arm of Sega Enterprises Ltd is the latest to join the plundering of the UK’s highly skilled and highly developed video games writing sector. It has acquired Cross Products Ltd, Leeds, which creates development tools for video games programming on undisclosed terms. Sega acquired all of Cross’s assets and retained all its employees and says it reckons the company will provide it with the highest quality tools to facilitate software development for new Sega games machines. The tools are designed not only to speed games development, but also to enable game developers to focus more on the creative aspects of video games and less on technical programming issues. Cross Products is the developer of what Sega styles the number one development tool for all video game systems, SNASM. The SNASM software suite will, as part of the purchase agreement, be customised for upcoming Sega machines, notably the new Genesis 32X, the company’s Saturn project Titan arcade system and other yet-to-be-announced products. Under terms of the agreement, SNASM will be marketed under the Cross Products name and will continue supporting the machines it currently supports – but will presumably not go onto forthcoming boxes from the likes of Nintendo Co.
