Sega Finally Turning It Around Financially?

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Originally Posted by spacecowboy

Did they sell VC to Sony? Hmmm. I was doubtful that their move to 3rd party would work for them, but looks like they proved me wrong. Now if only they'll release Shenmue II on PS2, I'll be happy with them once again.

SC

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Well, nothing's been said officially about VC getting sold to Sony, but in all their talk during combining development houses, they didn't talk about VC at all. Also, I looked for upcoming VC games and there's nothing there past October 2003 with the ESPN 2k4 games, but since that's their bread and butter, that might not mean much. Then there was the actual rumor that I think was in EGM that they were planning to sell VC to Sony. All that with the fact that they haven't put out *that* much this year and nothing was a million seller, so... The answer is "I dunno."

But yeah, let's get the Shenmue franchise onto a console that sells. Unfortunately, Shenmue II is pretty dated at this point, no matter how good one thinks it is, so porting it to PS2 as-is wouldn't be too impressive to the masses, I'm thinking. Shenmue III developed directly for PS2 and having the story made so it can exist well enough as a stand alone game without compromising anything that's come before? I'm there.

Dude, a drasticly elevated profit margin from what is forecast is usually a bad thing.

If a company's bottom line is increasing at an unexpected rate, then they're probably selling off assets. If they're selling off assets, it's a bad freaking thing.

Stop making sense. We're all incredibly intelligent business men and we know everything about games.

I'm sorry. It won't ever happen again.

*walks away with tail between legs*

Of course, it might just be that they sold VC after all. ;)

But that's still nothing to get all uppity about. If they can't turn a decent profit with their games, and are resourting to reporting the gains of sold assets (VC) to inflate their financial reports, it still looks shadey. Next quarter it'll be back down to 1.8 million, and after reporting a $52 million gain in the prior quarter, the stock holders are going to be super-dooper pissed off.

While looking for answers to the VC question, I found this interesting site ( to say the least ) http://www.beta-7.com/.

The site seems to imply that Beta testers for the 2K4 series were somehow injured, or that something "fishy" in general is going on - with testers blacking out, etc. It could explain why they'd want to sell them off ( it's it's real ). Do yourself a favor and check this site out.......

From a weird scanned ad ( from Orlando Weekly ) that reads, "If you or anyone you know has volunteered in the past two months as a beta tester for ESPN NFL football, please call 415-507-7777. Your response will remain confidential".

Yup. And then guys in black suits will come to your house and make you disappear! ( Don't laugh, someone's place supposedly got ransacked.... )

But anyway, if anyone would like to ask Greg Thomas ( president of VC ) what's going on ( if anything ) over there concerning a selloff - simply call the number published above ( which identifies itself as a customer service line ) and press "0" during the greeting. Now press "9" for the name directory, enter the keys for T H and O ( 8,4 and 6 ) and choose option 4 - "Greg Thomas". If he's ever "at his desk" than someone ask him simply "are you still owned by Sega"? That's the best way to do it, cause if there's no reply you know the answer.................

Upon further investigation - it appears the above phone number was set-up JUST FOR the ads, and has no other use than for people to call in who were beta testers for ESPN NFL football 2K4.... man this is some x-files type s**t. It does connect to their regular phone system , and if you dial their main number you'll get the same system.

worst hoax ever...somebody posted that here a couple months ago...

beta-7 is just a sega-run hype site for nfl 2k4. guerilla marketing.

There's this too

http://www.hmklab.com/private/users/admin/files/002/

If it's a hoax ( which I'm not discounting ) then WHY?

Did they fake the video of Warren Sapp mentioning "blackouts" in a disclaimer he was recording?

http://www.beta-7.com/blog/archives/000165.html

Why is there a specific number set up for people who beta tested a certain game - is that not odd?

The whole thing seems far fetched, yet again I ask - what is the motive if it is truely fake?

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Originally Posted by epmode

beta-7 is just a sega-run hype site for nfl 2k4. guerilla marketing.

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That is probably the most plausable explanation ( remember "meetseaman.com"? ) - though it lists phone numbers for a ton of Sega branches and makes a ton of violent accusations, seems a bit over the top for marketing, no? Why would they list VC's lawyer's name and ask people to call her and ask her to stop harrassing the site creator?

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Originally Posted by sphere79

The whole thing seems far fetched, yet again I ask - what is the motive if it is truely fake?

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to generate interest in 2k4. "omg the game is so good it's dangerous!"

like i said, it's guerilla marketing. do you remember the blair witch website? it fooled a lot of people into thinking the movie was a documentary. same concept.

the whole idea is to make it appear as legit as possible. that includes listing names and using official documents wherever possible, while creating others from scratch.

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Originally Posted by epmode

to generate interest in 2k4. "omg the game is so good it's dangerous!"

like i said, it's guerilla marketing. do you remember the blair witch website? it fooled a lot of people into thinking the movie was a documentary. same concept.

the whole idea is to make it appear as legit as possible. that includes listing names and using official documents wherever possible, while creating others from scratch.

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Yea the first person perspective ( formerly "crash cam" ) is SOOO realistic that it will actually cause injuries, I get it. I agree that's probably just what it is, but I'm surprised that they'd post phone numbers for offices everywhere, etc.

Well, I just got off the phone with the person this http://www.hmklab.com/private/users/admin/files/002/ domain is registered to - Brian Clark. His info is posted on the beta-7.com site and this is the first he's heard of it. He told me he has no idea what those files are on the hmklab site and he was going to find out and get back to me - he sounded totally legit, imo. If someone at his company was hired to create them, he'll let me know.

As far as generating interest, it didn't work - did it.