UPDATE: the interview was done with Haruki Satomi and not his father, Hajime Satomi, as the article initially stated. We edited the article to correct this.
Haruki Satomi, the founder of Sammy Corporation and also the current CEO of Sega, recently had an interview with Famitsu in which he talked about the past and future of Sega. Siliconera has posted a translation of the interview, revealing some interesting information. When asked about the state of the current console market, he recognized that the PlayStation 4, while not doing all that well in Japan, is selling very well in the rest of the world. He went on to note that the sales of Yakuza Zero in China have exceeded their expectations.
“As far as the Western market goes, we learned a lot from Atlus.”
In regards to the West, Satomi says they learned a lot from Atlus. In particular, he mentioned that “if we can make a title with proper quality, I believe there’s a good chance for it to do well even in the West for players that like to play Japanese games.”. Obviously, that’s something we believe as well, so it’s good to hear Satomi himself recognize that they can learn from the way Atlus manages to sell niche Japanese games in the West.
“If we can’t maintain quality, it would be better to not release anything at all.”
When asked about America and Europe, Satomi had the following to say: “Especially in North America and Europe, where it’s always been more of a focus on schedules, I believe that if we can’t maintain quality, it would be better to not release anything at all.”. He goes on to note that Sega will focus more on quality from now on, and because of that he won’t promise that they will be able to announce a new console game soon, although he does believe they’ll have something to announce at the Tokyo Game Show. When Famitsu asks what they can look forward to from Sega in the future, Satomi states that back in the ’90s, Sega was known for its brand, but has since lost the trust from its fans and has mostly been relying on its past reputation. In the future, he wants to win back the consumers’ trust, and wants Sega to become a brand again.
It’s certainly interesting to see Haruki Satomi himself make these comments, as for the most part they do echo what many fans have been saying over the past years: Sega lost what made it such a strong brand back in the console days by repeatedly releasing games that don’t live up to the quality we expect from them. It’s also really encouraging to see that Satomi thinks that Japanese games do have an audience in the West. So, Mr. Satomi, about Phantasy Star Online 2…
