Sega of America's president Simon Jeffery ain't shy. Speaking with VentureBeat, aside from the usual discussions (i.e. Sega is doing pretty good now!), he had some advice for the industry, and specifically, Electronic Arts and Nintendo.
Speaking about EA, he disagrees with its CEO John Riccitiello in that publishers/developers don't need licensed content as part of one's portfolio, saying "I think part of the reason they have left it behind is they are not good at it." In talking about EA's shift into more mature titles like DeadSpace, Jeffery says the company has its struggles in that realm:
"EA has always struggled with the hardcore gamer. I think they look at “Gears of War” and “Halo” and wonder why they can’t do that. EA has to do something about that. They have tried on and off over the years. It’s just like Activision had to come out from doing hardcore games and do more for the masses."
Moving on to the Wii, he says it's a very "cost effective platform to experiment with", but the state of things isn't too pretty:
"There is a lot of crap coming out for the Wii in general. But if it’s not a good game, it doesn’t sell. That flood of crap will die down as publishers become more coherent. The Wii is a great opportunity for hitting hardcore gamers. No one is doing that. With “Mad World” from Platinum Games, we are trying to show that millions of Wii games want to move on to mature games. They don’t have to have an Xbox 360 to do that."
Of course, to some extent the company is responsible for some of that crap (in this writer's opinion, anyway), but hey, times are hard and they've put out enough gaming gold over the years, so I'll give Sega a break.
Earlier in the interview, VB asks Jeffery his thoughts on the trends among big publishers and layoffs. Contrary to what I'd figured was happening, he says "the rich are getting richer, [...] but the poor are getting richer too":
"That makes sense. We are doing well at No. 6. We’re very profitable and doing what we want to do without being forced to fight with Bobby Kotick of Activision Blizzard all of the time. What Bobby is doing is extraordinary in overtaking EA. And staying so profitable. EA has the size and magnitude, but their profits are gone. They have big overhead too. Activision Blizzard is raining money now. The big hits will be bigger, just like in the movie industry. But the movie industry’s independent hits are still thriving and it will be the same in the game industry."
I guess it ain't all hopeless!
