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Sega Prez Speaks Out!

by Max Lake - May 3, 2001, 8:49 am EDT
Source: Ngenres

Ngenres spoke with Sega’s President Peter Moore & we’re pretty happy with what he had to say. Sonic on GameCube, Sega’s views on NGC and more! We’ve got highlights & comments!

While Ed Shih was getting his grubby mitts all over a GameCube controller at GDC 2001, one lucky fellow, Andrew Weatherton of Ngenres, got to interview Sega’s President, Peter Moore. Not surprisingly, it’s chock full of Nintendo love.

The interview is four pages long and has more goodness than I would ever attempt to completely re-cap. But before we send you on your way to read the sweet Sega love, here are some of the highlights.

First off, Moore all but confirms that a Sonic game will appear on GameCube:

If you were to look at a Sega franchise that fits well on Gamecube then, obviously, Sonic is at the top of that list. And from our point of view, we'll be looking very seriously at what Gamecube has to offer, and I know that Yuji Naka, the creator of Sonic, really likes the Gamecube hardware.

"So ultimately, it's not going to be a shock to anybody if Sonic shows up on Gamecube. I think the demographics match, from what I understand, [towards the people that the] Gamecube will appeal to. Sonic certainly is a character everybody in the business knows."

We all saw this coming right? Still, that’s no reason not to celebrate! WOOHOO!

Andrew also asked about what Sega’s biggest strength’s are moving into its role as a third-party. Moore emphasizes Sega’s teams & franchises, while comparing this aspect of Sega to EA (a company that publicly expressed some doubt on Sega’s ability to become a third-party successfully):

“The difference between us and [for example] EA is that we pretty much nurture all of our franchises, where as EA, if you look at who they are, well they’re NFL, NBA, Hockey, Tiger Woods, Harry Potter, Nascar, and these are all licensed properties from outside. Where as we are, obviously, Sonic, but then Phantasy Star, Crazy Taxi, Shenmue, Jet Grind Radio, these are all unique – there’s Seaman, Space Channel 5, I mean these are incredible games that we’ve built from within, that we have not licensed. Now, obviously, we do a lot of licensing as well, but our assets are an incredible library. I don’t know how far back you go with Sega but, Panzer Dragoon, Shinobi, Nights, Golden Axe, Altered Beasts.”

Moore speaks highly of EA later in the interview but makes it clear: Sega stands to do just fine as a third-party.

Games like Shinobi, Nights, Golden Axe and Altered Beasts being mentioned certainly isn’t some fluke either. Not so long ago, Sega’s Charles Bellfield hinted many of the 16-bit Genesis classics could hit GBA, speculating that Sega could become the biggest GBA third-party developer simply by porting over the entire Genesis library. Who knows what will happen but imagining new versions of any of these on GameCube is pretty exciting too. With Sonic Team doing a Sonic game on NGC, could Nights be far behind?

Moore is a bit elusive on the subject of GameCube but did have this to say:

“…we have visited Nintendo, up in Seattle, and sat down and looked at it, we like the hardware a lot and we know they will be a powerful force. Our hope is that we can start flowing GameCube content within the next twelve months from Sega to their platform.”

What very, very cool news & quite a positive GameCube report from the Sega camp. The fact that these words come from the current U.S. prez of Nintendo’s longest rival is, well, pretty amazing.

One final nugget of joy, comes from when Andrew asks if Moore has been working with Camelot:

“I haven’t, no, not personally, but we’ve got 1200 people involved in game development from here to Japan. So, I haven’t done anything personally, but it wouldn’t surprise me if our product development guys have.”

Well, well. Camelot may not be teasing us, but it doesn’t necessarily mean a Shining Force game isn’t coming.

Other things discussed include piracy, views on video game violence (great quotes), thoughts on the New York Times Nintendo/Sega story and an interesting opinion on the upcoming three-way showdown in the games industry—plus, quite a few other cool things too.

Amid all this, Moore echoes Charles Bellfield’s previous statement: “don’t discount Nintendo” and does so, at least a couple of times.

So get comfortable and go hit the full interview over at Ngenres. You don’t want to miss this!

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