Bandai Namco Entertainment’s Project X Zone 2, the strategy game featuring a mashup of characters from SEGA, Capcom and Bandai Namco franchises, was launched yesterday in Europe, and will soon be available in the US on February 16th. You can view the European launch trailer at the bottom of this article.
Sega-Sammy have posted their financial results for the first 9 months of the fiscal year 2016 (ending March 31st). In total, the company achieved net sales of 245 billion yen ($2.09 billion) and posted a profit of 6,498 million yen ($55.5 million). While the total sales were higher for the same period the year before, the company posted a loss back then. To see how the different segments performed, we included the chart below, showing the net sales and operating income for Sega-Sammy’s three main business segments (in millions of yen):
To promote the release of Yakuza Kiwami and to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Yakuza in Japan, Toshihiro Nagoshi and Masayoshi Yokoyama visited the Yakuza cafe for its opening day (January 28.) It is a limited-time operation and will close on March 16! The Yakuza cafe is a collaboration project between Sega and Pasta Paradiso Okachimachi Yoshiike, an Italian restaurant in Ueno, Tokyo. The Yakuza cafe itself is located at the Sweets Paradise Shinsaibashi in Osaka.
This Dengeki Online article chronicles the culinary adventures of our two heroes from Sega, who tried out the dishes at Pasta Paradiso. And here’s an image of the different items offered at the cafe, courtesy of Sega of Japan:
The prices above are for à la carte orders. For ¥1580 you can order a package that includes one of the two food items (first row) or one of the two dessert items (second row,) and one of the drinks (last row.)
The bottom segment is for drinks – the items with an orange circle marker are non-alcoholic, and the ones with a purple circle marker are alcoholic. Better keep Haruka away from those.
Kiryu’s dish is a pasta Arrabbiata dish, and Nishiki’s dish is a baked chicken dish, both of which are apparently quite spicy. I don’t mind spicy things, as long as it’s not too spicy – I can’t stand the hotter peppers, Sriracha sauce, and anything that’s generally “very hot.” The desserts are a strawberry parfait for Haruka and a soufflé cheesecake for Majima.
Those who dine in will also receive limited-edition Yakuza character-themed coasters and stickers as they are available.
Credit for the featured image goes to the above-linked Dengeki Online article.
We already knew SEGA was increasingly interested in making their games available in Asia, given how much potential for growth the market has. Even so, I was surprised to find how fast and determined SEGA apparently is to release their games there. For the English market, SEGA always seems hesitant, perhaps even reluctant, to localize their games. For example, the localization for the original Project DIVA F almost didn’t happen. Only an official Facebook poll, asking fans if they really wanted to see the games localized, drew enough interest to give the localization a green light. Similarly, it took them years to localize Yakuza 5, and it only happened with the help of Sony’s Third Party Productions. Phantasy Star Nova and Shining Resonance, both available with Chinese subtitles in Asia, were never even localized in English.
Recently, some people have found themselves unable to view Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA X videos on SEGA of Japan’s Youtube channel (which we’ve been including in our articles). The videos in question have been region-locked to prevent people in the US from viewing them. While this may be old news, it appears there’s still some confusion about who’s actually responsible for this. I’d like to point out that, at least in this case, SEGA doesn’t have anything to do with the region lock. Instead, it’s actually Youtube who have started region-blocking these videos ever since they started rolling out their new subscription service, Youtube Red. This new $9.99 monthly subscription allows people to view videos without any ads and download them for offline viewing.
Here’s the message you’ll get when you try to view the latest Project DIVA X video from the US.
However, companies who have not agreed to the new terms of use for Youtube Red, and who are currently earning ad revenue from their Youtube videos, will find that their videos are now being blocked in the US. In this case, the Project DIVA X videos contain content from labels such as EXIT TUNES and Incstoenterinc. But like many other Japanese companies, they have not yet agreed to the new terms. At the moment, Youtube Red is only available in the US, which is also why the videos are still available for viewing elsewhere. That said, Youtube plans to make Youtube Red available for other regions as well in 2016.
It’s of course disappointing to see this happen. It has been difficult enough to get Japanese companies like SEGA to allow their fans to upload their gameplay videos on Youtube. This move from Youtube only complicates matters further. That said, Vocaloid music composer Chrusher-P noted that Exit Tunes are doing their best to resolve the situation, so let’s hope they and other parties involved can iron things out with Youtube. In the meanwhile we’ll be including links to the NicoNico version of Project DIVA X videos in our articles, since those aren’t region-blocked. If you want to read more on the matter, here are some helpful articles:
Earlier this year, SEGA posted a promotional video to celebrate their 55th anniversary. Interestingly, the video was not just meant for the public, but it was also made to boost morale among SEGA employees. SEGA Games CEO Haruki Satomi mentioned this in a recent financial statement:
To better communicate the new SEGA Group’s mission and target profile, we produced a mission video and distributed it widely in-house. As a result, I have a real sense that employees are steadily regaining pride. Although the SEGA brand that we established around the world has weakened, we still have name recognition. By pursuing quality rigorously and continuing to exceed expectations, I want to regain trust and restore the SEGA brand’s luster.
Sega-Sammy Holdings Inc. has announced that it will be adjusting the profit forecast for this fiscal year, ending March 2016. While the company expected a 19,000 million yen profit (~154 million USD), it now expects to earn only 2,000 million yen (~16 million USD). Sega-Sammy Holding’s CEO Hajime Satomi recently apologized to shareholders and investors for the Group’s failure to meet their targets for the third consecutive year.
Sega-Sammy’s primary source of income remains the Pachislot and Pachinko Machines Business, but it hasn’t been performing quite as well as it did before. However, it’s the Entertainment Contents business that really underperformed for Sega-Sammy. In their official statement, the company points out three main reasons for these disappointing results. One is the delay of key titles (such as Persona 5). Secondly, some newly released titles did not meet expectations (though they didn’t state which ones). Lastly, there’s the increasing competition in the mobile games market. Mobile games were typically cheap and fast to produce relative to their console counterparts, but this situation is rapidly changing. Sega-Sammy points out that people expect higher-quality content now, and this leads to longer development times.
To reverse the situation, Sega-Sammy points out their recent efforts in their structural reform to improve profitability, and they will be discussing further initiatives internally that target all of their businesses. They plan to present the entire overview when they announce their full year results for the fiscal year ending March 2016 (scheduled in May 2016).
Sony’s Black Friday sales on the EU PlayStation Store, running until November 30, features several SEGA and Atlus games at a heavily discounted price! As usual, we compiled all the SEGA and Atlus games in the list below. Sony’s official blog post didn’t include the price in British Pound, but we added those to the list as well. There’s a similar sale on the US PSN, but unfortunately it doesn’t seem to include any SEGA or Atlus games.
We all know about Aoki Kakumei no Valkyria or “Valkyria of the Blue Revolution.” Now, it’s come to light that Sega of Japan has filed a related trademark for “Valkyria: Azure Revolution.”
So, the difference here is that the previous trademark was filed in Japanese, while this one is in English. But note that both were filed by Sega of Japan. (Those two trademarks in the image above after the Valkyria one were filed by Bandai Namco Entertainment and aren’t related to this story.)
We’re sure to find out more about this soon! I can confidently say that anyone reading this wants this to be a full-fledged Valkyria Chronicles game on a dedicated gaming platform. Let’s all hope for the best! Valkyria Chronicles definitely deserves more as a franchise, and I think it has the potential to become bigger than it has been thus far.
Credit for the featured image goes to this Gematsu article.
UPDATE: The archive of the stream can be viewed here.
Sega of America held a Yakuza 5 live stream today, where Sega PR Representative John Hardin and Localization Producer Sam Mullen showed a bit of what the game has to offer. Playing as Kiryu and Shinada, they showed the game’s combat, visited a hostess club, participated in karaoke, drove people around in a taxi, raced against a chicken (yes, that’s indeed in the game), … Suffice to say, there’s a ton to do in the game, and at the price it’s being sold it’s really a bargain. They also tried to give answers to questions from viewers, and I compiled a few of the answers they gave here: