Tag Archives: Simon Jeffery

Sega has announced that Naoya Tsurumi will assume worldwide responsibility for Sega’s Consumer Business, which includes Sega of America, Europe and Japan.

In addition, Mike Hayes, the president of European operations, has been promoted to the newly created position of President & COO of both Sega of America and Sega of Europe, reporting directly to Tsurumi.

This new role aligns the two Western markets and “ensures more aggressive collaboration across these growing territories in operations and product development.”

Sega’s announcement comes on the heels of president Simon Jeffery, hanging up his hat to “pursue other interests” with iPhone publisher ngmoco.

More job descriptions and the like are posted in the press release below.

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Sega Europe COO Mike Hayes has been promoted to president of Sega of America, GI reports.

Simon Jeffery stepped down from the position yesterday, to take on a new role at iPhone publisher ngmoco.

Speaking to VentureBeat, Sega US president Simon Jeffery has said he believes no one’s satisfying the Wii-owning hardcore. We have a hunch he may be right.

“The Wii is a great opportunity for hitting hardcore gamers,” he said. “No one is doing that.

“With “Mad World” from Platinum Games, we are trying to show that millions of Wii games want to move on to mature games. They don’t have to have an Xbox 360 to do that.”

It’s not just the hardcore stuff lacking on Wii, though. There’s “good” games in general.

“There is a lot of crap coming out for the Wii in general,” Jeffery added. “But if it’s not a good game, it doesn’t sell. That flood of crap will die down as publishers become more coherent.”

More through the link.

Following news earlier this week that Yu Suzuki hasn’t been working at Sega for ages, Sega US boss Simon Jeffery has retracted the statement – made in a Gamasutra interview – to say that he was essentially wrong.

“I can safely say that Yu Suzuki is in fact still a Sega employee,” he said, adding that Suzuki “is a Creative Officer of Sega Corp.”

Jeffery said in the original interview that Suzuki was “kind of his own man right now. Every now and again, he’ll come up with an idea, and I don’t think anything has come out of that yet, but we’re still working with him. He’s not an employee any more.”

Shenmue III will release on Dreamcast II in the third quarter.

Everyone else is running this and we don’t want to feel left out. In an interview with Gamasutra, Sega US boss Simon Jeffery has confirmed that Shenmue developer Yu Suzuki doesn’t work at Sega any more. Which is probably why you haven’t heard anything about anything he’s been doing at Sega for the past 3,000 years.

Speaking of names, what has happened to Yu Suzuki?

SJ: Last I heard, he was doing some online stuff in China.

He’s spearheaded an arcade racing title. Is he just really off in his own world?

SJ: Yeah. He’s kind of his own man right now. Every now and again, he’ll come up with an idea, and I don’t think anything has come out of that yet, but we’re still working with him. He’s not an employee anymore, but…

I wasn’t sure if he was still actually a Sega employee.

SJ: Not as far as I know.

There. Now we’re part of the gang.

The iPhone version of Super Monkey Ball’s sold 300,000 copies in just 20 days reports, The Wall Street Journal.

“That’s a substantial business,” says Simon Jeffery, president of Sega’s US division. “It gives iPhone a justifiable claim to being a viable gaming platform.”

Substantial indeed. According to Steve Jobs, if App Store sales continue at their current rate, Apple will rake in a whopping $360 million a year in new revenue.

More through the link.

By Mike Bowden

You’d think that watching giants like EA and Activision lumber around would have Sega ambitiously planning to reach the same lofty heights. Not so, Sega of America president Simon Jeffery said in an interview with Forbes.

“We don’t intend to be an Activision or an Electronic Arts–one of those juggernauts,” Jeffery emphasized. “We’re actually really happy where we are. We can be small and agile and yet extremely profitable and successful. It really feels like this year we’re competing with the next tier up, and THQ is a good company for us to model ourselves on and go after in terms of market share.”

But don’t think that means Sega doesn’t have big plans in store. When asked where he’d like Sega to be in five years, Jeffery explained:

“Where I would really like for us to be is at the cutting edge of every platform, to be the go-to publisher for Sony with its next system and with Microsoft with its next system. We kind of are like that with Nintendo right now, and thanks to our relationship with Apple, we are kind of like that on the iPhone at the moment. But I want to really get that same kind of recognition with Microsoft and Sony. We have solid relationships, but when they’re launching a new platform I want them to come to Sega to build their killer app.”

Check out the link for Jeffery’s thoughts on EA and Take-Two, Sega’s plans going forward, and gaming’s rapid growth. Definitely worth a read.

By Nathan Grayson

Speaking to MCV recently, Sega of America president Simon Jeffery commended the efforts of this year’s E3, but compared the atmosphere of the event itself to being in a hospital corridor.

“E3 was a strange beast this year,” he said. “We had an extremely strong product showing, had some great meetings, and got our messaging over pretty strongly – all at an event that had all the atmosphere of a large hospital corridor.”

That certainly isn’t the most encouraging of images.

There’s more through the link.

By Michael O’Connor