At a press conference held in Tokyo today, Sega"s Chief Operating Officer, Tetsu Kayama, detailed the company"s current software plans to the hungry press, partitioning the company"s lineup into five flavors: Arcade, Sports, Standard, Series, and Spectacular.
Naturally, the "Arcade" category contains games developed specifically for well, arcades. Likewise, the "Sports" category obviously covers the company"s sports franchises, with which Sega hopes to crush the competition by 2005. Conceding defeat (primarily to EA Sports) for the moment, Sega intends to come out swinging with the next generation of consoles.
Showing off more of the company"s tight game classification system, Kayama explained that the "Series" branch will include series" like Sonic the Hedgehog and Sakura Taisen, but that this category will not include the sequential installments but separate, spin-offish games. "Spectacular" titles do not fall in any of the above categories and should be considered unique, original works.
But more impactive than Sega"s new system of software classification was Kayama"s announcement that veterans Yuji Naka and Yu Suzuki would be widening their scope to work with other Sega developers (Smilebit, Hitmaker, et al.) to create original games. No specific titles were announced, but don"t hesitate to file the prospects under "Spectacular!"