The news that Microsoft announced the purchase for $ 7.5 billion of the company ZeniMax Media became the main event of September. At the same time, gamers immediately began to discuss the next steps of the platform holder to consolidate their positions in the video game market.
It’s no secret that earlier the head of Microsoft’s gaming business Phil Spencer announced his desire to acquire a Japanese studio to interest a local audience. In the Japanese market, the company was able to occupy certain positions in the era of the Xbox 360, but with the Xbox One, it lost almost without a fight to competitors from Sony and Nintendo…
Microsoft is now determined to catch up. However, it should also not be forgotten that the platform holder focuses on the development of the GamePass subscription service, the library of which must be constantly filled with games.
Given these two factors, it can be assumed which company is of interest to the Americans. SEGA…
Discarding conspiracy theories, such an alliance does not look like nonsense, because the companies have a long history of cooperation, which dates back to the 90s. So, Microsoft has developed for Dreamcast a special version of the operating system Windows CE, which was supposed to facilitate porting games from PC to console and vice versa.
Even more interestingly, the situation developed in the early 2000s, when SEGA, due to financial problems, decided to abandon the platform holder status. The company was threatened with bankruptcy, but the founder of the corporation saved the situation CSK (owned a controlling stake in SEGA) Isao Okawa. Before his death in 2001, the entrepreneur forgave the game publisher all debts, and also transferred stakes in CSK and SEGA for almost $ 0.7 billion, which allowed him to survive the painful process of business restructuring.
Despite this, the SEGA sale scenario was considered. What’s more, Okawa negotiated with Microsoft, which released the Xbox in November 2001 and aggressively expanded the business. However, the deal did not take place, and the blame for this Bill Gates, who believed that, in its current state, SEGA was not strong enough to compete with Sony.
Instead, an agreement was made in 2001 that brought 11 SEGA games to the Xbox, including Shenmue ii, Panzer dragoon orta, Jet set radio future, SEGA GT 2002, Gunvalkyrie etc.
Interestingly, cooperation has intensified again in the past few years. So, SEGA has allocated Microsoft a development team from the studio Creative assemblytasked with developing a strategy Halo Wars 2… Another studio owned by SEGA is Relic Entertainment – now helping in development Age of empires iv…
SEGA projects began to appear in Game pass, and several games from the series were ported to the Xbox One Yakuza, which until then came out only on PlayStation consoles (WiiU also received a lazy port of the first two parts, but it did not leave Japan). AND Yakuza: Like a Dragon in the West, it will immediately become a multi-platform project, and the version adapted for the Xbox Series X will be released several months earlier than the version for PS5.
The cherry on top is that Microsoft is helping to publish an updated version of an online game in North America Phantasy Star Online 2…
New fuel in the discussion about the alliance of Microsoft and SEGA tossed by General Manager of Marketing Xbox Aaron Greenberg and journalist Imran Khan… The first one recently posted in Instagram a video in which a live hedgehog is squeezed (!), and at the end there is a fragment of the SEGA intro (!!) from the trailer of the new game in the series Hatsune Miku: Project Diva (!!!). The hint is too bold to ignore.
And as part of a video podcast Kinda Funny Games Imran Khan said Microsoft paid SEGA for the Yakuza: Like a Dragon port, but not for temporary exclusivity. Instead, the platform holder took on additional financial obligations to win over a partner.
As the journalist explained, Microsoft radically revised its strategy back in 2017, when no major Japanese games were released on Xbox One. As a result, the American side began “courting” SEGA, so that she agreed to port the games from the Yakuza series to the console.
So does Microsoft intend to buy SEGA? It is impossible to give an unambiguous answer to this question, however, the parties have clearly established close cooperation. Even if it’s not about takeover, but about cooperation, this will give the platform holder a couple of trump cards in the console war. The scenario of a strategic partnership looks extremely realistic, within the framework of which several major Japanese games will join the Game Pass library at once.
SEGA is now feeling pretty confident in the market. The company also works closely with Sony (helped to promote Persona 5) and Nintendo (on Switch will be released Shin megami tensei v, companies together produce sports games featuring Sonic and Mario).
SEGA is also a major player in the PC games market, and new projects from the Total War series are sold in millions of copies annually. Given that GamePass on PC is undergoing a lot now, the franchise would be a great addition to a subscription service.
Read also: Save space and 10,000 yen: Microsoft unleashes a price war against Sony in Japan
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