Sega and Nintendo going to mobile? Why?

Is Sega the next Atari?

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2015-02-23-is-sega-the-next-atari

     This article discusses whether Sega and Nintendo's recent business plans, such as Nintendo's plan to move to the mobile market. The article mostly refers to an interview that GamesIndustry.biz conducted with former CEO of Sega and current CEO of Leapfrog, Tom Kalinske, and his opinions on the matter. He believes Sega has been making bad decision after bad decision for the last twenty years, and that is why they are in the unfavorable situation they are in now, but he says that they can definitely make a comeback. He also states that Nintendo is correct in finally directing some of their focus into mobile gaming.

"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."

"Stupidity," Kalinske laughed. "They're hard to kill. You have to really make a lot of mistakes to kill a strong brand. I do think some great brands obviously have been destroyed, Atari being one of them. Why didn't that survive? I think there's a lot of bad decision making involved in killing brands like that. I hope Sega isn't the same thing."

     The article doesn't discuss some recent news that is actually very important when discussing Sega and Nintendo's future. Sega has recently released a full blown Sonic game for android devices, Sonic Runners. This is a big deal because the game was developed by Sonic Team unlike Sega's previous mobile games. If the game does well it will most likely encourage not only Sega to dive deeper into the market, but also Nintendo. Sega has also recently announced that they will most likely stop making games for console in the next few years and focus only on PC, which many consider a ridiculously uninspired decision. Then again Sega did produce two of the most highly acclaimed games of last year, Alien: Isolation and Bayonetta 2, both for console, but I suppose that wasn't enough to keep them from deciding to go PC exclusive. Sonic, Sega's most well known IP isn't doing so well with his last two console games, Sonic Lost World and Sonic Boom being critically panned and not selling as well as Sega would have hoped, which most likely contributed to their hesitation to stay in the console market. I believe that Sonic's success, whatever medium he is published to next, whether it be mobile, console, or PC, will have a huge impact on what Sega decides to do in the near future.

week 8