Sega Won't Have A Booth At This Year's E3

Oh well.

What would they even show, more free to play garbage? So much for going third party saving them.

Now all my hopes of seeing Sonic Boom 2 are crushed

Jokes aside... this is unfortunate and I hope SEGA recovers of this crisis

Do they have any games to show off?

Sega has been a slow and steady decline ever since they went third party and stepped away from the console manufacturing. So this doesn't surprise me all that much.

clears throat
...Sega is DOOOOOMED!!!!!

@Tazcat2011

Hatsune Miku: Project MIRAI DX
Tembo: The Badass Elephant
Yakuza 5
Dengeki Bunko Fighting Climax
Total Warhammer

Not to mention Atlus games like Stella Glow, Persona 5, Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold, and more. Also, Project X Zone 2 is a thing.

Yeah, look at all that "free to play garbage".

Also, they actually are going to Momocon, so they probably just feel like the games they do have aren't enough to warrant their own booth at E3. (Most are localizations.) They could easily, say, show off Tembo at Sony and Microsofts booths, or a crossover game at Nintendo and Sony and/or Microsoft's booth(s). They also probably don't have a Sonic game this year, and people seem to only really know Sega for freaking Sonic in America (the complete opposite of Japan), so...

@OdnetninAges I was being a bit sarcastic as I just read an article about Hortensia Saga. Momocon is a better fit as they seem more focused on their domestic market at the moment vs the western one.

@DarthNocturnal think by partners they mean the Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft and the recently announced PC gaming booth but hey i could be wrong

Calling it now, Sonic's 25th Anniversary next year will just be a "Remastered" port of Generations for PS4/XBONE.

Good, they shouldn't be in a hurry to announce a retail Sonic game this year, it'd be too rushed and would probably do even more harm to the series.

Segas biggest mistake was not keeping their various ip ticking over once the dreamcast died. The likes of streets of rage, golden axe, daytona usa, skies of arcadia, shenmue, crazy taxi, sega rally, shinobi, alex kidd, virtua tennis, fighting vipers, phantasy star, shining force, virtua cop, house of the dead are either laying dormant, only have games out in japan or have had the odd download game but nothing for years. It makes me sad to see this once great company fizzle out

Still true!

This is a little surprising tbh. Other, companies with supposedly less will have booths. Talk about just fizzling out. If nothing at E3, then it feels like you can nearly discount them for putting out anything except a rerelease until late 2016 :/ What the heck is going on over there?

What I really want to know is what's the story behind the lone person sitting sadly in the back of the booth?

I remember lots and lots of rumblings and disappointment when Ntineod decided not to do a press conference at E3 2 years ago. There were even people on here complaining that Nintnedo didn't "go" to E3 or "do" E3 even though they were streaming Treehouse Live almost the entire time and had a huge floor space from what I could tell.

Sega not having floor space at E3 probably isn't going to change anything for them
.
9 years ago E3 was all but dead anyway.

http://arstechnica.com/uncategorized/2006/07/30/7382/
http://news.cnet.com/Why-E3s-shifting-to-a-smaller-playing-field/2100-1043_3-6100636.html

A lot of the old school major players in the videogame industry (particularly Japanese companies) are having trouble:
Sega
Capcom
Konami (Hudson Soft)
Namco had to merge with Bandai
Square Soft had to merge with Enix
Tecmo merged with Koei.

How times have changed...

A small part of me was overwhelmed with joy when I was at their booth last year. It was the first time being in e3, and it was almost surreal to be at ground zero for Sega - something I had dreamed about since I was a little kid.

...I just really wish the whole booth hadn't been about Sonic Boom.

It is really worrisome the situation that japanese developers and the industry in general seem to be in. I have faith in Nintendo's future, but I'm not so sure of many of the rest of third party developers.

@Ryno I had that game before I was even a Michael Jackson fan, I WISH I still had it! There was an arcade version too, my friend says it was great but I've never seen it for myself. Thanks for that scan I LOVE it! (hardcore MJ fan here by the way, in case you didn't know... Lol)

@MikeW Yeah...it's pretty sad. At least they're still around, though.

@rjejr

Yeah, but E3 rebounded and came back in a big way, after some hefty restructuring. More companies than ever have press conferences this year, including, I think, the first ever for Square-Enix, Bethesda (Whoo!!), and PC gaming in general.

If I were fool enough to be superstitious, this is when I'd cross my fingers and eat a lucky rabbit's foot that we'll see Fallout 4 this year. With Bethesda planning an actual Press Conference, I would not be surprised at all to see both Doom 4 and Fallout 4 appear, and that would be just amazing.

Nintendo, of course, I expect will just phone it in again, much to the ambivalence of almost everyone. Then, after a while drowning in full-blown E3 hype for everyone else, we'll return to clicking refresh on Nintendo Life as we wait for Nintendo to wake up. And eventually at long last, we'll see what Retro's been working on and--hopefully--it'll be amazing.

Meh if this means that the nex game they will work on is god thats alright with me we dont need a another rushed game like sonic 06 or ryse of lyric! just saying!

Really enjoying the 3d classics Sega have put out recently, I just hope they keep on coming!

This is how business works: vyou want to make more money. If you can't sell more of your product, you try to make savings.

E3 is a very expensive event, and if you only have a minimum to sell, it's a little pointless when you can spend your ad budget elsewhere for greater pinpoint success. Not to mention Nintendo, MS, and Sony are willing to promote Sega's products for their own systems. To me this is just a sensible reduction in Sega's ad budget with little product coming in 2015.

@Gizmoguy92

I would be really surprised if Sega is creating a deity.

Just the American branch ignoring the existence of their Japanese branch again huh?

They could have something to show if they would just use their old IPs. They don't need to buy new developers

Sega it's time for you to come with a new console. You can beat PS4 and Xbone with easily! Bring remake Phantasy Star online episode 1 & 2 or blue burst. Shenmue/ Sonic Adventure 3/ Shenmue 3/ Skies or arcadia remake or 2/ Powerstone 3 and many many more titles. You can make VC as well with the older games. You will do well!

@MikeW Nintendo should by one or more of tge companies you mentioned when they hit the bottom.

Just officially open up the Phantasy Star Online 2 servers internationally and have the English text patch which fans already made for the game as an option and set up a Phantasy Star Online 2 booth at E3. You'll make tons more money and it'll barely cost you anything. No English voice acting isn't a deal breaker for any significant amount of people!

I seriously don't know why Sega thinks the only IP they own that westerners are interested in is Sonic. It's ridiculous. Also ridiculous is whatever casuals, grandmas, little kids and smartphone game players they had for their focus group that convinced them Sonic is "too fast".

@Quorthon Obviously they're working with Platinum and Nintendo on Kid Icarus x Bayonetta

"Instead, we will be collaborating with our various business partners for this year's E3 show."

Yes I realize the odds are practically nil of this ever happening, but what if that seemingly benign sentence turned into a MEGATON Nintendo Direct announcement during E3 of a merger/direct collaboration with Sega, Konami, Tecmo, Capcom, Square, SystemSoft Alpha, GameArts, Treasure, Namco/Bandai, and other major Japanese publishers to make and support the upcoming NX console?

I think the entire balance of the videogame industry would shift, just like that. If these companies returned to what they used to do best and teamed up as they did during the NES/SNES/Genesis days, not only would it very likely save Sega and Konami from seemingly imminent self-destruction, but it would be a literal renaissance for the old school games and genres that made so many of us fall in love with the hobby in the first place.

Oh, and can you just imagine that next Smash Bros. and Mario/Nintendo Kart if that happened?

Sadly, as long as Sega keeps going along their own path and the powers-that-be there don't change, their situation will NOT improve and neither will the hopes of ever seeing so many of their incredible IPs again.

@Quorthon - "clicking refresh"

Actually, I just click on NL on my bookmark header, but I know what you mean, I've been waiting since last Friday for a "What do we expect in Friday's Spaltoon Nintendo Direct". I mean, Nintneod actually gives us a full weeks notice that an ND is coming, rather than just a day or 2, and now we're just ignoring it. It's getting hard to contain all my rampant speculation. And I'm not even all that excited about the game, but that's all there is on Wii U - Mario Maker and Yoshi whenever in the states - so I'm going overboard on a game I'd rather be able to ignore in lieu of something else, but there is nothing else. Had we gotten a US dat efor XCX during that Live Treehouse stream I'd be all over that, but I'm not getting my hopes up for something thatcoudl still be a year out. Same for Yooka-Laylee - looks nice, I want it, Day 1 - but 18 months away at the soonest.

On topic - Sega will be the same w/ or w/o an E3 appearance, no hardware, no big new games, whatever they have or don't have. It IS important for Ntinedo to be there w/ both Wii U and 3DS and them tying to carry each almost singlehandedly, but Sega is just Sega at this point. Not every 3rd party company needs to have a big showing at E3.

Sega, Konami and Hudson all gone! Console gaming is dangling by a thread. I have a feeling this merger with DENA and Nintendo will wind up being something less than desirable. I hope not but we will see. Don't forget Zelda Cancelled for this year. Things are not going in Wii-U owners direction.

I wonder if Sega has ever considered experimenting with crowdfunding to gage serious interest in their old IPs? I strongly suspect that we'd see a lot of franchises developers currently dismiss as "niche" or "not 'mainstream enough'" make comebacks if they allowed gamers the opportunity to put money on the table. Just look at the overwhelmingly positive response to their putting Valkyria Chronicles on Steam.

M2 seems to be more of the classic Sega these days.

@DarkKirby Sonic isn't the only IP that Westerners like but it is the only one with mainstream appeal. For a while I didn't even know what else SEGA made besides Sonic, Billy Hatcher, and Super Monkey Ball.

Whoever said that Sonic was too fast deserves to be shot, though. Next thing you know people are going to say Mario shouldn't jump or Master Chief shouldn't use guns.

@rjejr Actually, with the 3DS I'd say it's more the 3rd parties carrying it than Nintendo. For the 2nd half of the year we have Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold, Rodea the Sky Soldier, Project X Zone 2, and Stella Glow all lined up for the west. What do we have from Nintendo? ...Yeah, not a single retail game.

In fact, the only games lined up from Nintendo at all for the 3DS in the future that we know about are Fire Emblem If and Rhythm Heaven - the former isn't coming to the west until 2016, while the latter hasn't even been confirmed for the west yet.

What on earth are they working on for the 3DS? WarioWare? Advance Wars? Golden Sun? Metroid? Starfy? Some other franchise (Punch-Out, F-Zero, Wave Race, Sin & Punishment, etc)?

Kind of sad to see Sega go the way they have, remember how brilliant a console the Dreamcast was - too little too late in the end but man that machine had good games.

Oh how I wish they'd publish some classics for wii u vc!! But if not I'll settle for them on xone and/or ps4 at this point!! Sigh!! What a shame what sega has become these days!!

@Alucard83 No they won't.

@IceClimbers - You're right, I should have put the 3DS part in the past tense. Which I know b/c just last week I was looking at the upcoming 3DS line-up to see which game I could possibly get bundled w/ 1, I still don't own 1, just play on my wife's, and there really weren't any. I still want 1 for Dream Team, Luigi's Mansion 2, Kid Icarus, Fire Emblem a few others, but nothing upcoming except Bravely the 2nd but that's a ways out yet.

Maybe they'll have something to show at E3? Maybe to go along w/ the mystery amiibo portal? They've shown it, they've said it's coming, but it's still a mystery to me.

@rjejr
I'm thinking the 3DS will have a pretty decent lineup this year after E3. We've still got Bravely Second in the air, a (possible) Fire Emblem If holiday release, and Im calling it now, we're getting a Metroid 3DS. There's Monster Hunter Stories that should get localized, and that's not really accounting for what Nintendo themselves are going to bring to the table.

Maybe a new DKC game? Ha, only in my wildest dreams.

I think we're in for a few surprises this E3. And while we know most of Wii U's lineup (and sure there will still be unannounced game or two) the bulk of mystery lies with the 3DS. And that makes it exciting- the unknown. It could be anything- just think rjejr... A new F-Zero 3D, a new Super Metroid, another new IP! Hop aboard and let's get this tub up to speed (the hype train, that is)!

Oh no! You mean we won't get to see the world reveal of Sonic Boom 2? What ever will I play this year?

_{Please, no.-Morpheel}

@MJKOP download the arcade ROM and play it on mame emulator for PC/android.

Hopefully Sega can clean up this mess and get back the love they deserve. Sega has so many wonderful franchises, so I hope they can re-build themselves back up and come back strong...maybe even come back into the console race some day in the future.

@JLPick Man I love the hope you have. I guess I have the same hope but I think Sega is leaving now. They announced a few weeks back they intend to move to smart phones and tablets. With what they have coming out this year and now this. I think its pretty apparent where they are going. Shame! What a shame.

@rjejr

Yeah, I don't think it's a big deal that Sega isn't there. As has been noted, they've been doing some restructuring and have an office move, and I'd rather they take some time than just rush some stuff out just to have it. Though I am curious what Sega may have up their sleeves, given the franchises they have.

@IceClimbers

The 3DS has, by far, had the fewest known games for 2015 of any platform, which is telling and somewhat baffling given it's sales. Evidently, sales of actual software on the platform must not be very impressive to keep so many third parties away, and for even Nintendo to be winding down.

I think it's likely this is the first sign of the impending NX take-over as Nintendo gradually winds down development on 3DS and/or Wii U--again, depending on what it is. If it is the fabled hybrid machine, then it would make sense for development of both 3DS and Wii U software to be gradually stopped. But again, this is exactly how Nintendo works and has worked since the N64 era--once the new hardware is announced, there is a very obvious and sharp decline in the software output on current hardware. And Nintendo has announced the NX, so over the next 18 months or so, expect to see fewer and fewer new games for either system. They are both already in decline.

The 3DS, though, is pretty clearly well past it's peak, so it's increasingly unrealistic to assume that it's going to "get better" or that any upcoming year (including this one) will be "the best" for the 3DS. Personally, I don't even remember the last time I bought a new retail game for the system. But that's just me, and I do have over 130 games for it overall.

Also, what the hell happened to that Final Fantasy Explorers game?

@IceClimbers

I know you were making fun joke, but Platinum is currently focusing on an Xbox One exclusive. As much as I would enjoy another Kid Icarus (like Uprising) or Bayonetta, I don't think either are going to happen. At least not on the Wii U or 3DS.

Sega should just change their name while they're at it. The real Sega died long ago, now they're just dragging their name in the mud.

Give us more IPs SEGA, Sonic's alright but why not be a little more creative? No?

@Quorthon Good if Nintendo makes a NX that is compatible with Wii U. Then, Wii U players can continue to play Wii U games while NX already enjoys a stable user-base at the beginning.

@FilmerNgameR Sega has Alien Isolation, new Yazuka, Fantasy Star Online and other new IPs - they are just not on Wii U.

Somebody needs to throw Sega a lifeline. Yeah, nintendo and Sega may have been rivals in the past. But video game companies should be one family. http://5starblog.com/super-mario-nintendo-jeff-ryan-scribd/

@GreatPlayer yeah but i meant like bringing back its older ips like streets of rage, skies of arcadia, jet set radio, etc. It's too much i know, but it would be nice to see a fresh of new air for these old gems! And those new games not being on wii u is another screwy problem.