Irimajiri Might Resign as President of Sega
Really quick, I want to pass along some new information I have received–if anything should happen, the most likely date is Friday Japan time, which would be Thursday evening USA time, and near midnight UK time. I am keeping track of new info…
5/22: A report out of Japan suggests that Shoichiro Irimajiri would take responsibility for the fall of the Dreamcast in the land of the rising sun and resign his position at Sega Enterprises. If this were to happen, Irimajiri would become vice chairman of the company and help with development of Sega’s next console. Isao Okawa of parent company CSK would take over. However, CSK has said that no decision has been made about this matter.
As a result, Sega’s stock dropped in Japan today, and reaction has been mixed. Keep in mind when reading these that this has not actually happened yet.
AlanDang of DCTP: So, the question is “what happened?”
Why isn’t Sega successful in Japan? They seem to be doing everything right. There are more complaints with Sega of America (ie. poorly dubbed Shenmue, Sega Rally 2 w/o internet play, etc.) and yet SoA is doing pretty well.
Projectares: I am FED up with all these removals of CEOs from SEGA.
They dump Bernie, then replace him with that Japanese guy (I don’t remember his name sorry), then they put Peter Moore in his place…
They get rid of Irimajiri now huh! It looks like SEGA dumps the Presidents before they can do any good.
It is WAY too early to reveal info on another SEGA hardware when Dreamcast has barely sold 2 million and has only been out for about a year.
Good grief! Just because SONY blows info out their hole OOPS I mean their Press department constantly doesn’t mean SEGA should follow as Dreamcast is not SELLING as well in Japan as Playstation 2. Sony loves to tell fibs anyway.
Dural: Sounds to me he got promoted from a boring position to an exciting one.
I envy him!
Reddog: Man what a shame, I really thought he was doing a fine job. What does Sega have to do give the hardware away for free with no strings attached in Japan because with all good markeeting, special conferences, gadgets, freebies, and hardware promotions you’d think that Sega was number one.
I guess Sega can’t have it all, arcade and console. I’ll give them an A for effort over there because on the side of this pond I haven’t seen anything like that.
Lazy8s: Sega has hardware divisions which are always researching new technologies. That’s their full-time job, and it doesn’t mean that Sega is always on the brink of releasing a new platform. There will be no successor to the Dreamcast in the US for quite some time… The fact that the news story speculates that Irimajiri is in a new position to look ahead to the Dreamcast`s Japanese successor doesn’t imply that the machine is five years away or five months away from release. The Dreamcast’s lifespan will continue for quite a while.
Sega needs entirely new approaches in Japan. I think that’s fairly obvious. The problem with that market is that there is a lot of name-brand loyalty out there. If Sega can continue to be successful in the US and Europe, it can help turn the fortunes of the parent company around.
We will have more info was it becomes available, and if Irimajiri does resign, I will post the story as soon as I can.
