Sega Hopeful As Losses Exceed Forecast

Sega released their earnings for the first half of this fiscal year (April-September) yesterday in Tokyo, and reported losses of 19.1 billion yen, or $183.8 million, a sharp contrast to the 1.2 billion yen profit last year.

Sega blamed the loss on the 50% increase in marketing and other costs in order to promote the Dreamcast Console.

At a news conference later that evening, Shoichiri Irimajiri, President of Sega, announced plans to overhaul its business. This includes plans to create 10 subsidiaries out of its software research and development business and arcade portions in order to better oversee its operations as well as plans to transform Sega into a network services provider.

Sega has plans to create 20 games centers in Japan as a first step in its network ambitions. These game centers will allow people to participate in networked games among the different game centers, such as a large scale war game.

Sega expects to sell 10 million Dreamcast consoles in the next fiscal year, which starts April 2000, and Sega is expected to end this fiscal year with losses of 10.9 billion yen

And the PSX2? Irimajiri was quoted as saying "We are safe because Playstation 2 is very expensive, too expensive for mass market". He also expects the PSX2 stay above $200 for at least 2 years after its release, a sharp contrast to Merril Lynch's claim that it'll reach that price a mere 6 months after its release price of $370. Which is right? We'll know soon enough! Stay tuned!

Source: The New York Times

Date Updated:
November 27th, 1999

Time Updated:
6:20 PM

WooJin Lee