Sega to become platform-neutral, Team up with Palm

Sega have thrown a slew of announcements into the mix as of midnight tonight. We did try to report the news earlier as a rumour based on news we had received through unofficial channels, but the response was for us to remove the story nonetheless. The three announcements concern Sega's movement into the third party videogame development business, their Sonic Café deal with I'Apli and a crucial strategic alliance with Palm regarding wireless videogaming. Of the three releases, the strategic relationship with Palm is of most immediate interest, since they kept this one very quiet. "Both online and offline videogames will be released for the Palm V and Palm VII sometime this year," it says, and "further details regarding this relationship will be forthcoming." After the relative failure of Sega's Game Gear device and the catastrophe that was the Nomad, this deal will finally give Sega a solid development platform for its mobile games. Speaking on behalf of the company, COO Kazutoshi Miyake commented that the deal "breaks new ground" and that "people want to play more games on the move." The main announcement, that Sega intend to break into the third party videogame development business, was summed up quite succinctly in our restrained item earlier, which was as follows:- "A source close to Sega has revealed to EuroGamer that the company intends to make a big announcement tomorrow (Wednesday, 31st January) about its future in the videogame market. Definite confirmation is expected tomorrow, but in the meantime, we know that Sega intends to redevelop "Space Channel 5" for PlayStation 2 and "Sonic The Hedgehog Advance" for the GameBoy Advance. The information was obtained from someone who works for one of Sega's competitors - apparently it's common practice to share this information around a bit prior to it becoming public. Apart from the 100 games for Dreamcast Sega pledged to ship by March 2002 earlier this week, the company is apparently working on 30 for other videogame consoles and a number of Internet devices. Many will be sequels to well-known brands like "Crazy Taxi" and "Shenmue"." Specific details can be found in the press release. Related Feature - Sega Confirms New Business Strategy