Announced today, SEGA and Microsoft will enter a partnership with the goal of creating ‘new strategic titles’ for SEGA, as well as establish a ‘next-generation development environment.’ One of the quotes that is sure to leap out says this: “This proposed alliance represents SEGA looking ahead, and by working with Microsoft to anticipate such trends as they accelerate further in future, the goal is to optimise development processes and continue to bring high-quality experiences to players using Azure cloud technologies.” Yukio Sugino, President and COO of SEGA Corporation, had this to say for the partnership: “We are very pleased to announce today that we are considering a strategic alliance with Microsoft to help develop SEGA’s new “Super Game” initiative as well as build a next-generation game development environment. By considering a strategic partnership with Microsoft, we seek to further advance our game development so that our titles can be enjoyed by fans all over the world; in this regard, we aim to build an alliance that utilizes both SEGA’s powerful game development capabilities and Microsoft’s cutting-edge technology and development environment.”
Xbox-exclusive SEGA titles?
The partnership details were quite mum with regards to any mentions of exclusivity, although ‘IP Utilization’ was one of the more notable keyphrases used to describe this agreement. Before this announcement, SEGA has been quite open to releasing their titles on the platform; Yakuza: Like a Dragon was one of their biggest releases, showcasing that SEGA has a keen interest in growing the series’ playerbase beyond that of its PlayStation roots. While it’s too early to say what we will see from this partnership in the future, it will not be surprising to see more SEGA games make their way to the Xbox platform, in particular those that will utilize Microsoft’s powerful Azure cloud technology.
