Or not so shocking as the case may be.

Several sites are reporting Amusement Vision and Hitmaker! are taking their sites down due to developers wasteing too much time creating things like " developers diary" and other special articles. Aparently these two companies are both mergeing back into Sega so Sammy saves a little money ro something along those lines.

Also those rumors of Naka, Suzuki and Nagaoshi leaving Sega are so shocking I refuse to believe them. I' m warning Suzuki though, he better finish off Shenmue in some form before he leaves! A game/book/movie I dont care I just wanna know then ending!!

All the studios are merging back under the Sega label, no big deal, that' s how they all started anyway. I am sure some branding will remain in tact, i.e. AM2, Sonic Team logos etc.

As for those guys leaving Suzuki, Naka, Nagoshi etc - no immediate cause for conern. Hell, we only just finished our interviews with them. And there are still a couple more to run. And the rumour really started from this Kikizo article http://games.kikizo.com/news/200404/001.asp - which quoted an Edge article that said they were " rumoured" to leave. And Edge just made that up basically, or at least their source did.

AM2 and Sonic Team are the best known and i hope they stay. One reason i think they are bringing the teams together is because i think they want many loyal SEGA fans to look a SAMMY products not knowing they are not from the current SEGA and get them to buy them. They will not fool me with games like Spy Fiction.

Of all the names mentioned, Yu Suzuki is the one person that I CAN' T see leaving Sega. He IS Sega


As for the merging of the studios back into Sega, I think they' ll still keep their identities, they' ll just all be using the same bathrooms again..

Even before they split off into individual studios Sega pretty much always had development groups split up into different studios like AM2, AM3, AM4, AM5, Sonic Team, etc..

Then you had smaller get togethers like Team Shinobi, Team Andromeda, Team Columns (kidding about Columns- we all know one man in his garage made that game :p)

All the studios are merging back under the Sega label, no big deal, that' s how they all started anyway. I am sure some branding will remain in tact, i.e. AM2, Sonic Team logos etc.

As for those guys leaving Suzuki, Naka, Nagoshi etc - no immediate cause for conern. Hell, we only just finished our interviews with them. And there are still a couple more to run. And the rumour really started from this Kikizo article http://games.kikizo.com/news/200404/001.asp - which quoted an Edge article that said they were " rumoured" to leave. And Edge just made that up basically, or at least their source did.

I feel silly now

ORIGINAL: Terry Bogard

As for the merging of the studios back into Sega, I think they' ll still keep their identities, they' ll just all be using the same bathrooms again..

EXACTLY. This is the point. It is a structural change. The only thing really lost is the ego of the studio presidents, who should never really have been running and been responsible for independent subsidiaries and their commercial wares in the first place! The branding seems like it will remain in tact.

Look at the new www.sega.jp (live as of today) for evidence!

I may be the only one, but lately I really just don' t care much for Sega. I love some of their games but I honestly can say I' ve only played one in the last 2 years more than once.

hmm. it' s different for me. With Sega Ages: After Burner 2, Outrun, Outrun 2, Virtua Quest, Dororo, Sega Super Stars, and Astro Boy among others, Sega seems to be having a banner year for me :)

The Shenmue series was my favourite games from SEGA. Shenmue 2 was one of the reasons I bought an X-box.

Sega rocks. I just hope they don' t change their logo to that grotesque Sega-Sammy design I saw. Ug!

Can someone please tell me if SEGA is going to keep there original logo? Are they going to put the original blue logo on packages like when Sonic DS comes out or are they just goin to put that ugly new logo. I know sonic team and the other developers wont put there logo' s anymore but is it possible for SEGA to keep its original logo? And when games like Astro Boy come out are they going to put the Sonic logo on it?

Can someone please tell me if SEGA is going to keep there original logo?

Yes. But they do have a seperate logo to promote their joint venture (i.e. owned like dogs) with Sammy.

It' s really crappy. You don' t want to see it. But all their current and future games look to have the classic Sega logo on them.

Sega logo stays.
Studio logos stay.
Dev execs stay.
That' s all fans need to worry about!