Sega sparks into life this Q4

Sega expects to emerge from its period of new release slumber by scoring four chart hits ahead of Christmas.

Things have been pretty quiet since the success of AVP, Sonic Racing and Napoleon in the spring, giving new Euro boss Jurgen Post a chance to settle in and size up his task.

Post has added pan-Euro responsibility to his on-going management of the Benelux territories. He took over from Alan Pritchard, who moved across to Sega of America in June this year.

Through the summer, Sega has released little and kept price promotions on back catalogue to a minimum.

Football Manager 2011 (Friday, November 5th), Sonic Colours (Friday, November 12th), Sonic Free Riders (TBC) and Vanquish (Friday, October 22nd) all come to market over the next six weeks.

Free Riders is a great title and we’d like a 10 per cent attach rate, but everything really depends on how the hardware does,” Post said.

Sonic Colours will be a hit on Wii and DS, whilst Football Manager is a big focus for us, bigger than ever before.

Vanquish will be a challenge because it is a new IP arriving in October with so many other great games, but it is a very good product and therefore has a chance of doing well.”

Timely re-promotion of Sonic and Sega All-Stars Racing and Mario and Sonic at the Winter Olympic Games will also help to beef up the publisher’s winter challenge.

Sonic and Football Manager are pillars for us, as is Total War, which returns with a brand new title due out sometime next year.

It is of course nice to have several video game hits, but our focus here at Sega is very much on hitting targets and being profitable.”