TOKYO (Reuters) - The head of Sammy Corp., Japan's biggest maker of slot machines, said on Wednesday it can work with video game maker Sega Corp., in which it became the biggest shareholder this week, to boost its presence in the arcade game market.
Sammy, which also makes pinball-style "pachinko" game machines, agreed to buy 39.1 million shares in Sega, known for its "Sonic the Hedgehog" video games, for 45 billion yen ($420 million) on Monday from information services firm CSK Corp
The two had broken off merger talks in May due to disagreements over management and other integration terms, but Sammy Chief Executive Hajime Satomi said the biggest sticking point was trying to reach an agreement with CSK, Sega's biggest shareholder at the time.
"CSK wanted to do whatever possible to get the highest price for Sega, so it really didn't work out then," Satomi told Reuters in an interview. "But I told CSK to come to me first when it really wanted to unload Sega."
Sammy paid 1,158 yen for each Sega share, a 13 percent premium to Monday's closing price. Shares in Sega had risen more than 70 percent since Sammy pulled out of talks in May.
The new stake will be added to the 100,000 Sega shares, or 0.06 percent of shares outstanding, it acquired in 1999. It is now the biggest shareholder in Sega. Investment bank Goldman Sachs is Sega's third-biggest shareholder with a 3.5 percent stake.
Satomi, who personally holds nearly 25 percent of Sammy's shares, said taking a majority share in Sega was one of many options he had wanted to consider, including possibly setting up a holding company or a full merger.
"I can't imagine this happening, but if our vision does not agree with that of Sega then we might have to consider taking more shares," said Satomi, who categorized his relationship with Sega as friendly.
Satomi said he wanted to join Sega's board of directors as soon as possible and play a role in the video game publisher's management. Separately, sources close to the matter said Satomi would become a board member early next year.
Sammy also develops video games for commercial use, along with its core business of supplying machines for pachinko parlors, which are ubiquitous in Japan and are invariably filled with devotees watching as tiny metal balls whirl around the upright pinball machines.
Players can win or lose money but the government defines it as a form of entertainment, not gambling.
One of the potential benefits from the acquisition of Sega shares, Satomi said, will be in sales of Sammy's "Atomiswave" game machines for arcade use. Sammy plans to use Sega's library titles and branding strength to help the fledgling machines.
Sammy started selling the arcade machines in April and Satomi said the game development costs are significantly less than for existing machines. Atomiswave also allows arcade operators to change unpopular games by switching cartridges.
Shares of Sega fell 5.23 percent on Wednesday to 1,014 yen, while Sammy shares closed down 1.4 percent at 3,530 yen. By comparison, the benchmark Nikkei average fell 2.11 percent.
($1=107.11 Yen)
Hmm... no so sure if this is good or bad... I don't know if Sammy's taking over and telling Sega to do more arcade games on the Atomiswave (which I believe is more designed for 2d than 3d) will be good for Sega... looks like it could hurt Sega's uniqueness and experimental games, for sure... :(
This is the only comic I've created. I may create more in the near future, though, as I had fun with this one. It's the one I made to put in my signature when the whole "put a comic in your signature to annoy GR and OB1, but mostly GR because his connection is utter shite" craze started.
Two Zelda games--Legend of Zelda: Four Swords and The Legend of Zelda: Tetra's Trackers--will now be released as a single title, The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Plus.
TOKYO--In the latest edition of Nintendo Dream magazine, Nintendo revealed that it will be releasing The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords and The Legend of Zelda: Tetra's Trackers together on a single disc. The disc, which will be named The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Plus, will also contain a new game called The Legend of Zelda: Shadow Battle.
The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords was announced at E3 as one of the two Zelda titles that will take advantage of the GameCube's connectivity with the GBA. Now called The Legend of Zelda: Hyrule Adventure, the game uses the TV as the field map, and the GBA display as the action screen when walking into buildings or caves. For players without a GBA, the in-field view will be displayed on a separate window on the TV screen. Up to four players can participate in Hyrule Adventure.
The Legend of Zelda: Tetra's Trackers was the second E3-announced title with GC/GBA connectivity. Now renamed The Legend of Zelda: Navi Trackers, the game will feature a speech navigation system that talks, advising to the player during mini-games such as a stamp rally or bingo. By typing in the player's name before starting out, the speech engine will call the player by name during the game.
The Legend of Zelda: Shadow Battle is a battle-royale survival game, where four different versions of Link will fight each other to the finish. The stages will include a number of tricks that can be used to strategically defeat opponents in the game.
Since the Zelda series has traditionally been a single-player game, the games will also have extensive solo modes. For example, Hyrule Adventure comes with its own storyline, and Navi Trackers will pit a Tingle on a balloon against the player.
The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Plus is slated for a February release in Japan.
Quote:December 09, 2003 - News publication Time Magazine recently featured an article in which it dissected Nintendo's game plan, or seeming lack thereof. The magazine criticized Nintendo's short supply of pioneering software and indicated that the company "seems to be suffering from game-development gridlock."
It also dismissed Nintendo's Pac-Man vs., stating; "The fact that the program itself was an update of Pac-Man (which debuted in 1980), however, tended to undercut the message that this was a particularly thrilling innovation."
Nintendo's president Satoru Iwata reiterated the company's feeling that prettier, deeper, online-supported games are not the answer. Time wrote: "Online video games have been a false start so far, Iwata asserts, which is why he has no plans to lead Nintendo in that direction. The current path taken by game developers toward more cinematic graphics, richer story lines and complicated controls is a blind alley that, he says, will only worsen the current 'nothing's new' ennui felt by many consumers."
Iwata pointed once more to simplistic, intuitive software that anybody can play as the way to go.
Time Magazine, meanwhile, suggested that Nintendo's future may be as a third-party software company and not a hardware manufacturer.
Online games have been a "false start"??? Richer graphics and good stories are a bad thing??
With this attitude I don't expect Nintendo to last in the hardware business for much longer. They're more stubborn than ever!
I wonder how Denis Dyack feels about all of this. All of the games he's worked on have had great storylines, with ED being one of the most story-intensive of them all.
*sigh*
You know, I agree with Nintendo that there's not a whole lot of innovation and "newness" any more, but they're certainly not changing that! Every single one of their 2003 GC titles were sequels, and sequels that were little more than graphical updates to their predecessors! The hypocrisy is simply astounding.
![[Image: TCcomic.JPG]](http://www.pages.drexel.edu/~djc46/TCcomic.JPG)
