Sega: No Mergers After All

You've got to love Sega. No, really. Some of the merger talk of late has been a complete joke. Not that any of it has been untrue - after all, it's all officially documented at the boards of Sega, Sammy and Namco. What's a joke is that - just like the supposed Sega-Bandai merger back in 1997 - it was almost blindingly obvious that the Sammy merger was never going to happen.

"Aha, it's easy for you to say that now!" we hear you cry. Well, not really. It never made much sense to merge with Sammy. From a financial standpoint it would have been sound - and even from a brand standpoint, it was understood that the Sega brand - sensibly - would be retained. What didn't make sense was the 'business integration' - Sammy's core business is Pachinko (with a few videogames thrown in, wahey!), while Sega's core busines is obviously full-power, life-enriching videogame brilliance. There was reportedly a board-level, privately-held incentive for the merger to happen - but thankfully it was either too weak, or didn't exist.

Happy days: Sato and the executive team two years ago, when they had a bright new future and fresh funding - a lot of which went on Sports games thet didn't sell, unfortunately.

Unfortunately for Sega, they've got a history of dissapointing shareholders. Under Sato's management, things may have a brigter outlook however: "We'll consider wide options including staying on our own. We need to choose what's best for our shareholders," suggesting that Sega have had other offers as well. Whilst he declined to give details, it's likely that Microsoft and EA speculation will again start to circulate.

Sega also revised their profits upwards, announcing that they expect a net profit of ¥3bn ($25.8m) for the year ended March 31, up 500 percent from its initial estimate of ¥500m. It cited "stronger-than-expected arcade game sales and solid game software sales in Japan and the United States" as the reason.

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