Sammy invasion sees first casualty - Nakagawa resigns
Sega Japan on the defensive as fans' worst fears realised
Sad news today sees the resignation of Sega's Rikiya Nakagawa, former head of Wow Entertainment.
Beginning his career at Data East, Nakagawa-san has been with Sega for over 20 years and is credited with pioneering some of the firm's most impressive and innovative coin-op titles, including the House of the Dead series and Dynamite Cop.
He is also a close friend of AM2/Digital Rex director Yu Suzuki and is credited as advisor on some of Sega's biggest and most impressive games, including Shenmue and Virtue Fighter.
Sega Japan has thus far made no comment as to why Nakagawa walked from his post earlier this week, though it would be a surprise if Sammy's recent actions are not in some way connected.
Sega is perhaps in its darkest hour at this point, with fans resigned to the possibility that the firm's main focus may well become budget arcade games, running on the AtomisWave system, for the Chinese and Korean markets.
Sammy, a pachinko giant, became the majority shareholder in Sega last week, buying all of Sega's former parent company CSK's stake in the Sonic firm. Since then, Sammy directors have been making some alarming comments as to their perceived future of Sega, not least the "cheap arcade" focus, as hinted at by president Hajime Satomi. Satomi this week, when discussing Sega's possible AtomisWave involvement, stated, "It's low cost enough that even a single play at 10 yen can turn a profit. We can sell it in third-world countries as well."
Quite simply, if you have machines in third-world countries turning 10 yen profits, production values will have to be sacrificed - of this there is no question.
Sega fans this morning will be hoping that the departure of Nakagawa will not be followed by those of Suzuki, Naka, Nagoshi and company.
Then again, perhaps that wouldn't be such a bad thing...
Beginning his career at Data East, Nakagawa-san has been with Sega for over 20 years and is credited with pioneering some of the firm's most impressive and innovative coin-op titles, including the House of the Dead series and Dynamite Cop.
He is also a close friend of AM2/Digital Rex director Yu Suzuki and is credited as advisor on some of Sega's biggest and most impressive games, including Shenmue and Virtue Fighter.
Sega Japan has thus far made no comment as to why Nakagawa walked from his post earlier this week, though it would be a surprise if Sammy's recent actions are not in some way connected.
Sega is perhaps in its darkest hour at this point, with fans resigned to the possibility that the firm's main focus may well become budget arcade games, running on the AtomisWave system, for the Chinese and Korean markets.
Sammy, a pachinko giant, became the majority shareholder in Sega last week, buying all of Sega's former parent company CSK's stake in the Sonic firm. Since then, Sammy directors have been making some alarming comments as to their perceived future of Sega, not least the "cheap arcade" focus, as hinted at by president Hajime Satomi. Satomi this week, when discussing Sega's possible AtomisWave involvement, stated, "It's low cost enough that even a single play at 10 yen can turn a profit. We can sell it in third-world countries as well."
Quite simply, if you have machines in third-world countries turning 10 yen profits, production values will have to be sacrificed - of this there is no question.
Sega fans this morning will be hoping that the departure of Nakagawa will not be followed by those of Suzuki, Naka, Nagoshi and company.
Then again, perhaps that wouldn't be such a bad thing...
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