FFor more than a decade, between the late ’80s and early 21st century, Sega was one of the coolest video game companies on the planet. Its arcade games, from Golden Ax to Virtua Fighter, were box office hits; The Mega Drive brought a punk rock attitude to the home console scene, challenging Nintendo’s family-friendly approach with glitzy TV ads and censorship-inducing games like Mortal Kombat and Night Trap.
However, it was arguably later, in the Dreamcast era, that Sega studios were producing their most innovative and extravagant work. Shows like Jet Set Radio, Crazy Taxi, and Space Channel 5 were hyper-colorful celebrations of Tokyo pop culture. Now, the man who was leading Sega Japan developers at the time, Shuji Utsumi, is the CEO of Sega America and Europe, and he has a plan to restore the company to its creative heights.
Utsumi has had a long and varied career in gaming, starting at Sony with the launch of PlayStation in 1993, before moving to Sega and then Q Entertainment, Warner Music and Disney Interactive. He returned to Sega in 2019, eventually becoming co-chief operating officer during a challenging period for Sega Europe. “The European studios have really amazing IP, but at the same time there were difficulties,” he says. “I had to work on restructuring the group.” That process meant the cancellation of Creative Assembly’s multimillion-dollar online shooter Hyenas, the first in a series of industry-wide live-service game closures.
Since becoming CEO of Sega America and Europe in April of this year, Utsumi’s focus has been on doubling down on Sega’s legacy. Last December, the company announced new titles from Crazy Taxi, Jet Set Radio, Golden Ax and Shinobi, a treasure trove of classic franchises. At the Game Awards held in Los Angeles last week, Sega also announced the return of Virtua Fighter. “We have great pillars, like Sonic, Persona and Yakuza. But at the same time we have other properties that really show Sega’s style, attitude and context. I think players will love it if we get this right. “It will be a challenge, there are high expectations, but if we can respond to that, we can be Sega again.”
in a recent interview With Eurogamer, Utsumi said he wanted Sega to be the rock’n’roll of Nintendo’s pop music again. But while little has been revealed about the nature of these returning franchises (will they be reboots of the originals or entirely new adventures?), he’s convinced that what they won’t will be exercises in nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake. “The players loved Sega because we showed them a new style, attitude and lifestyle,” he says. “I want to get that feeling back. But we are not just a nostalgic company, we must be innovative. We also need to appeal to modern players. We respect the old IPs but I also require that developers think about innovation in each of the projects.
“Our studios are really capable, very technically advanced, and there is the will to do it. That time is coming when we must challenge ourselves like we used to. We want to come back with that rock’n’roll mentality, only now you can’t just be rock’n’roll, maybe you need hip-hop too!”
This sounds closer to Sega’s Dreamcast-era attitude than the teenage brat iconography of the Mega Drive days. Not only did Utsumi drive the creation of music-obsessed Jet Set Radio and Space Channel 5, he also co-founded Q Entertainment with Tetsuya Mizuguchi, the studio that put dance music at the center of its design philosophy through titles like Rez and Lumines. . What was it about game development in Tokyo, and especially at Sega, in the late ’90s and early ’00s that encouraged this kind of creativity?
“At that time, Sega was a challenge,” Utsumi says. “PlayStation was very successful, so when the Dreamcast launched, PlayStation 2 was the target; It was a cool machine, so we had to push our young developers to be creative. I think the products that came out were very impressive, but you know, PlayStation 2 beat us, so I can’t say much about how successful they were.”
In the last five years there has been a resurgence of interest in game design concepts heavily focused on Japan, at Sega and elsewhere. The huge global success of role-playing adventures like Yakuza: Like a Dragon, Final Fantasy VII Remake and recently Metaphor: ReFantazio has brought mainstream attention back to the Japanese role-playing game scene, after years of dominance by Western franchises like Assassin’s Creed , Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto. Why has that happened? “Everyone else was making first-person shooters; I have to confess we’re not very good at that!” he jokes. “But we can offer something more than what we believe in. Of course we will listen to the Western audience, but we have a great opportunity to be unique in the Japanese way. I think during Covid a lot of people got into Japanese anime, Korean dramas and music… I think the audience is still there, we’re very lucky for that.”
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Another change since Covid is the increased presence of video game properties in other media. A third Sonic the Hedgehog movie is already in theaters, while Like a Dragon: Yakuza, a crime television series, was released earlier this year on Amazon. It’s not just about the commercial possibilities of expanding Sega’s brands; Utsumi believes there are also important creative reasons. “Nowadays, you can be watching a movie on your mobile phone and a few seconds later playing a game, and then you’re on TikTok… users are used to that kind of behavior. In response, our creators must have a new mindset for that audience. Our creative talent has to combine so we can capture these trends. Working with animation and film talents, we are inspired.”
The Sega of 2025 and beyond will reinvest in its classic titles, introducing new audiences to Golden Ax, Virtua Fighter, and Jet Set Radio rather than simply exhuming them as museum pieces. When I ask him about the possibility of new mini consoles based on Saturn or Dreamcast, he demurs. “I’m not going in the Mini direction. It’s not me. “I want to welcome modern players.” Sega later clarified that there are no plans for more Minis.
It’s a theme he returns to again and again: Sega’s legacy is there, but it must be moved forward. “We are not a retro company,” concludes Utsumi. “We really appreciate our heritage, we value it, but at the same time we want to offer something new; Otherwise, we will become history. “That is not what we intend.”