Sega Says Mulling Sales Ties with EA
Tue May 27, 2003 05:19 AM ET
By Yuka Obayashi
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's Sega Corp said on Tuesday it was considering an offer from U.S. giant Electronic Arts Inc (EA) to form a North American sales alliance aimed at shoring up its poor performance in the world's largest gaming market.
Sega Senior Officer Hisao Oguchi, who takes over as president of the videogame maker in June, told Reuters in an interview that it had already received an offer to join hands with EA on North American sales of consumer videogames.
The North American market has been a thorn in Sega's side and Oguchi said the company wants to reinforce the development of videogames to attract a wider audience in the key United States market.
"We have been badly beaten in the North American consumer videogame market," said Oguchi. "If we can't resolve this on our own, then it's better to join hands with someone."
Oguchi, 43, was appointed last week to replace Hideki Sato as part of the company's effort to rebuild its credibility, which was battered by Sega's recent wavering on merger talks.
Sega lost two merger candidates earlier this month when it scrapped three-month-long merger discussions with "pachinko" pinball-style game machine maker Sammy Corp as well as similar talks with videogame maker Namco Ltd .
In addition to EA, Microsoft Corp has also been reported as a potential bidder for Sega but analysts said neither company would be interested in buying all of Sega, which would include its game arcade operations in Japan.
What they would want is a star development team or a franchise property -- not the sales and marketing staff or the arcade game operations, an analyst at a foreign brokerage said.
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