The studio is independant but I believe is still partially owned by Sega. This is the beginning of a new restructuring of dev teams within the company, with teams being independant but still being part of Sega.
Basically they are going back to the ' Dreamcast Era' style where each team is owned by Sega but has creative control and self-funding, along with partial funding by the main company as well.
I guess this is to help extract the brilliance and creativity that Sega' s teams showed back a few years ago on the Dreamcast.
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Okay so not owned by Sega, as I first thought.
Still, at least they are working closely with Sega, and I' m willing to bet this is what the company partially meant when mentioning working with outside developers. Maybe more freedom and independent control is what these teams need to get back to making really great games again.
< Message edited by kyo.k -- 8 May 06 21:50:22 >