Siliconera posted a new Famitsu interview with the new President of Index Corporation, Sega-Sammy’s COO Naoya Tsurumi. In the interview, Tsurumi assured fans that Sega would not interfere with Index’s usual business, but also mentioned that Index (and therefore Atlus) would be free to use Sega’s resources and even dormant IP. That’s good news, but the following quote from Tsurumi regarding the many Atlus fans out there is rather interesting:
Having the fans feel uneasy is the worst thing we could do. Above all, I’d like to make sure that the fans feel a sense of reassurance. If we were to lose fans, then all would be for nothing. Making fans and the employees of Index happy is what I believe will be our best return [for the company], and we’ll do our best to keep that up.
Now Tsurumi was talking about Atlus fans here, but of course the same logic should apply for Sega fans as well. And yet, the Sega fans overseas aren’t getting the chance to play the games out of their favorite franchises. If Mr. Tsurumi is indeed convinced that all is for nothing if they lose fans, then why is their current strategy doing exactly that? This is all the more reason for us to make our voice heard, and show Sega-Sammy that we do indeed care more than they might realize. If you haven’t signed our petition yet, please do so. Let Sega know how many fans they do risk losing by not releasing their games outside of Japan. And do let us know your thoughts about the interview in the comments!
Interesting indeed. I first came across this interview on Yakuzafan.com via twitter.
It does seem rather odd that Sega is claiming that their fans are the most important thing yet they do not seem to be acting accordingly… I think one of the best things we can do now is to not only make our voices heard to Sega but to Atlus as well seeings as Mr. Tsurumi himself said in that interview, “While we have no intention of forcing this, we’d definitely love to have them utilize any of Sega’s dormant IPs.”
Clearly Yakuza, Valkyrie chronicles, and Sakura Wars are “dormant” here in the west. Let’s let them know that we want them to work on these games as well.
What’s also interesting is that Tsumuri is also Sega’s COO, so he was very much in charge of Sega’s restructure. This interview on Sega-Sammy’s website gives us more insight in the changes Tsumuri brought to the company:
http://www.segasammy.co.jp/english/ir/ar2013/coo_sega/index.html
Admittedly, so far he succeeded in returning the company to profitability. Unfortunately for us it means we’re not seeing games localized because Sega deems them to be unprofitable. So this latest interview about Atlus sounds a bit too good to be true, it seems to me he’s just saying what people want to hear. In reality, I assume Atlus’ “independence” will depend on them remaining profitable.