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MCV 11/06/10 57 MCV INTERVIEW
months? Absolutely yes – it has been a phenomenal success. Combined sales of our Mario and Sonic games is around 18 million units globally. So they did hit expectations but were slow getting off the blocks.
Sega is a major player in PC. Do you feel publishers that have moved away from the platform have made a mistake?
I can only look at it from our point of view. For an innovative industry we tend to look at things in a linear, straightforward manner. The PC market is changing beyond all recognition. We know electronic distribution is taking up a much bigger part of PC sales. So you don’t get the true picture. You see PC numbers decline, but if you add in
digital distribution, which can be anything from 10 to 25 per cent of your boxed numbers, then it balances the market out.
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A WINNING PARTNERSHIP: Hayes says Mario and Sonic at the Winter Olympics was a massive success for Sega, even if it was released a little early
DLC, which we did a lot of for Total
War, is kind of invisible to the analysts. But it is not to the consumer in terms of what they get out of the PC experience. We have the right type of games with Football Manager and Total War, but we were also surprised by the performance of Aliens vs. Predator on the PC. That has given us a new lease of confidence on what we can do on the platform. The death of PC is somewhat premature.
Would you like to see a digital games chart? Yes I think so. There are pros and cons. But I think it would be in everyone’s interest to have visibility on what is being sold digitally. Especially as digital will probably one day account for more than 50 per cent of video game sales being made.
Unless we are understanding and tracking that it would make our business planning very difficult. I am happy for people to see our numbers, and hopefully other publishers will feel the same way.
Isn’t piracy a problem on PC? Piracy is the scourge of the industry and we will do whatever we can to combat it. We will try as many different systems and security procedures as we possibly can. There is no doubt we have to get clever and tougher with anything to do with piracy. Whilst we can never stamp it out, we can delay the effects as piracy for as long as possible.
What are the gaps in Sega's portfolio, and how are you looking to plug those gaps?
The notable gap has been our inability to break out on the core market. The huge successes we’ve seen have been Mario and Sonic, Virtua Tennis, Total War, Sonic, Football Manager and that has been fantastic.
It would be in everyone’s interest to have digital game charts. Digital will probably one day account for more than 50 per cent of sales. Mike Hayes, Sega West
Where we’d really like to have some success is in the core business. We got there with Aliens vs Predator and we have high hopes for Vanquish. And we also hopefully proved we can create quality with Bayonetta. We do look at what Ubisoft, Activision and Capcom are doing and it is something we’d like to emulate. Because if we can do that, added to the success we continue to have in the other sectors, we will truly have a world-beating business.
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Can Natal and Move help you in this area? We are wholly supportive of the initiatives that both companies are making with Natal and Move. We feel that the success those companies can make on the new motion-sensing market will steer the audience far more to the typical Sega, family audience, where some of our bigger IPs are – notably Sonic. We will have new IP on those platforms and do that cautiously because of the risk there. And also as they expand their audience, a lot more of the strong Sega IP will also find a home on both Sony’s PS3 and Microsoft’s Xbox 360.
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