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EX-SEGA BOSS: "SEGA HAS BEEN GETTING IT WRONG FOR 20 YEARS" - With comments from Insincere Dave

26/2/2015

2 Comments

 
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While not wanting to turn today's Digitiser into an inadvertent Sega-bashing sesh, we nevertheless feel compelled to report that ex-Sega Boss Tom Kalinske has laid into his former employer, stating that it has been making the wrong decisions "for literally 20 years". 

Coincidentally, this is around the time Kalinske - who oversaw the firm during its Mega Drive heyday, where he gained a reputation for his aggressive attempts to bury competitor Nintendo - left the company.

Speaking to Gamesindustry.biz, Kalinske chimed in on Sega's recent woes - it has been forced to move offices, reduce staff, and adopt a strategy that places focus on mobile titles. 

Hissing through a cardboard tube with each alternate word, he said: "It could have been avoided if they had made the right decisions going back literally 20 years ago, but they seem to have made the wrong decisions for 20 years."

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Intriguingly, Kalinske also spoke about a mooted Sony/Sega union - bringing together Sega's game expertise with Sony's hardware experience. 

As he gently caressed an old man's foot, Kalinske revealed: "We went to Sony and they agreed, 'Great idea.' Whether we called it Sega-Sony or Sony-Sega, who cared? We go to Sega and the board turned it down, which I thought was the stupidest decision ever made in the history of business. And from that moment on, I didn't feel they were capable of making the correct decisions in Japan any longer."

Since leaving Sega, Kalinske has worked in the interactive edutainment industry, and is currently vice chairman of Leap Frog. Who cares? 

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"Well done to Tom for bravely saying what we've all been thinking!!!!!!?! And who can blame him for jumping off the Sega boat just at the point things started to go wrong?!??!!!!! Sega are a bunch of idiots for letting him go!!!!?!! If they'd paid him more money to stick around I'm certain Sega wouldn't be in the toilet today!!!!?! After all, I'm sure Tom never made a bad business decision in his life!!!! Tom Kalinske is a legend!!!!!!?"

2 Comments
Mr Smith
25/2/2015 02:56:05 am

Kalinske did one of the best interview I've read, in Retro Gamer magazine, some months back. When they had the Saturn on the cover.

He basically revealed how Sony wanted to partner up with them, before the PlayStation was a thing, and they said no. And then the company which developed the N64 hardware came to Sega first, and were turned down, but Kalinske recommended they go to Nintendo with it.

In addition to his words, there have been many, many, MANY little reveals by former staff over the years.

One of the Panzer Dragoon team revealed in GamesTM how a manager from a rival internal R&D team destroyed the Panzer Dragoon Saga source code after completion, because he was annoyed at how their team was receiving more resources than his.

Also, there's been staff reveals of how staff at Sega Japan actively tried to sabotage Sega US on multiple occasions, because the Mega Drive was selling well in the US but not Japan, and upper management chewed out middle management in Japan, asking why they couldn't be more like their US counterparts and succeed. It beggars belief that rather than trying to up their own game, they'd rather hobble their left leg because it's covered in more gold jewels than the right leg.

And don't get me started on them allowing Yu Suzuki to basically empty the entire company bank account on Shenmue, which cost the equivalent of between 10 to 15 triple-A titles of the time. If they'd tied him up with duct tape and locked him in a room, they could have used that money to literally make 10, or 15, or even 20 other games, all of which could have been on the same level as any other big budget game in 1999.

I bet no-one even knows about Suzuki's secret throne room under Sega HQ...

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10110101110
28/2/2015 12:44:41 am

Doesn't surprise me, when I worked there the resentment and distrust permeated the whole company, they had such a dumb hierarchy system of management everyone had to go to in order to get info to someone and vice versa, not following the correct chain got you reprimanded. The whole thing was just management types trying to save their own skin by giving themselves work and the power to shoot down complaints before they got to their bosses. Plus the rivalry with japan was unbelievable, when Japanese bosses paid a visit it was like being spat in the face. Don't know why they even have any staff outside of Japan if they think they are all useless.

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