Sega to Shut Down Publishing Offices in Australia and Beyond

[News Portal]

Back in April, after learning they would be making 50% less income than the previous year, Sega announced that they would be cutting jobs and sticking to proven IP to see them through the hard times. Now, as of July 1, Sega will be shutting down five publishing offices in France, Germany, Spain, Benelux, and unfortunately, Australia. 5 Star Games will be taking over distribution responsibilities in Australia.

Source: Gamespot

Read full article by GON News

[PalZer0]

Hopefully this will mean fair pricing for Sega titles on Steam in Australia.

[Marius]

I have no idea who they are...

Google is no help either. "5 star games" just brings up a bunch of random reviews that were judged to be 5 star games.

That's a poor company name if I ever saw one.

[DarKnode]

Hopefully this will mean fair pricing for Sega titles on Steam in Australia.

I don't see how. If anything it means they hate our Aus dollar so much they will keep price gouging us.

[DaJenko]

5 Star Games will be taking over distribution responsibilities in Australia.

Why is a local company (middle man) needed? It wouldn't be that hard to sell online and ship out of wherever the discs get made.

Not saying setting up an online B2B is straight foward, but once set up well you wouldn't need anything else.

[Submariner]

This is all I could find of 5 Star:

The newly-created Five Star Games will assist with distribution of Sega titles across Australia from 1 July 2012, and will be managed through the SEGA Europe Headquarters based in London. Says Sega, “Five Star Games Pty Ltd is founded by Darren Macbeth the ex -Managing Director of SEGA Australia and prior to that MD of Ubisoft Australia. Five Star is focused exclusively on selling, marketing and distributing premium quality video games in the Australian market.”

http://stevivor.com/2012/06/sega-restru ... the-ashes/

[realOne]

Damn if only sega was back in the console game. I would really like a new next gen sega console.

[Nekosan]

Can't criticize that, if I owned a development company I'd just close up shop here and move the offices to eastern/mid europe.

[frigidhell]

SEGA gave us a great game called "Vanquish" a few years ago, unfortunately only few gamers supported and bought the game.

Still waiting for SEGA to give us a Panzer Dragoon or some Shining Force for the current generation of gaming consoles.

[exe3]

I didn't like Vanquish, I felt like I was so suppose to charge in and do a bunch of awesome stuff but if I tried that i'd die and hugging cover like Gears of War (was about to type Gears of Wall ) was the only way to proceed. I also remember the game loved animation lock, get hit once and be prepared to get hit another 5 times while you wait to get control of your character back. :/