Sega shuts down Chinese online division
While we have been hearing great reports of Sega acquiring new studios across the Western world and bulking up its developement of games in the West, all does not appear to be going as swimmingly in the East.
Bizarrely named Asian Website, 17173.com, has reported Sega’s closure of its online games unit in Shanghai, China. The reasons expressed for the shut down are due to (very) poor performance results from the divisions online games.
The division, founded in October 2005, was host to such casual online games as Rainbow Knight, Drums Barrels OL and Tong Tong Online. So casual were the games, in fact, that it seems that Rainbow Knight only had a peak of only (just over) 1,000 concurrent players at any time. Compare that to the (just over) 7 million online users of, the highly popular, World of Warcraft or to the hundreds of thousands of players (I believe) on Phantasy Star Universe, and I think you can see the problem.
For more information, check out 17173.com. Their article goes into much more depth- though I should warn you, the page has been translated using Google Translator, so the English is slightly “broken.”
[Edit: Above link does not seem to be working properly, and goes to the original language, not traslated version (for some reason). If you type 17173.com into Google and translate the page, then follow links for ‘More Headlines’ - you should find the translated article]
[Via 17173.com, RedlineChina.com, PacificEpoch.com]
4 opinions for Sega shuts down Chinese online division
Kogen
May 30, 2007 at 12:51 pm
It’s kind of unfair to compare just online game users in China alone compared to games in world figures, but it’d still be pathetic anyway. I’m glad to see they’re closing it, it’d only eventually lead to rapid piracy and crap like organised criminal gold farming(like in WoW) due to how inferior Chinese people are and everything that relates to them. If Sega wants to try to open up in profitable developing countries, they should focus more on India as that seems highly ignored compared to Asian places. Or just hurry up with Shunmue Online, which I thought was supposed to be focused on places like Korea and China but apparently not now.
Silverslug
May 30, 2007 at 2:07 pm
I wonder if this will effect the progress of Shenmue Online.
G
May 30, 2007 at 2:31 pm
Kogen - perhaps I wasn’t fair to compare the game to WoW or PSU, but really I used them to show off two ’successful’ Online games in comparison… plus I actually couldn’t think of any other online games that are only based in one region…
Silverslug you bring up a good point, as Kogen also pointed out Shenmue Online was meant to be launched in Korea and China, this could either mean no Shenmue Online or that Sega may try and release it in Japan and (hopefully) the western territories instead.
Finger ccrossed.
Sebastian
Jun 1, 2007 at 12:48 am
I hope it doesn’t affect SHENMUE ONLINE. =(
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