Sega laying off over 300 staff as company famous for Sonic focused on smartphone and PC online games

Sega, the gaming company, is cutting back on staff within Europe with up to 300 staff voluntary retirement offers. The move for the UK based games developer comes amid a slowdown in the success of arcade console games and console games that use a TV as the display.

The company is in discussions with staff in their European division to reduce the number of employees focused in what they now consider non core activities. Sega will be refocusing on their success with smart phone games and PC online games markets respectively and actively move away from other platforms with their future games.

The move comes amid the success of their Sonic Boom game and a realistic look at their options. Sega have been successful for decades with their track and field, and arcade platform games particularly including ones featuring their character, Sonic the Hedgehog as an unlikely spiky character who can run along, leap and dive at amazing speeds. The popularity of the Sonic character has not waned over the years.

Sega Europe Cutting Back

Sega Europe is making the cutbacks. Sega Corporate is part of Sega Sammy Holdings which produces amusement arcade game machines, console video games, online PC games, and mobile device games. As of December 2014, they have paid up capital of only £500,000 / $775,000 or 100 million yen. Their profitability is still reasonable but far lower than previous years which has prompted the change in strategy. Creative Assembly and Sports Interactive which are game development houses owned by Sega Europe are expected to not see much change from the restructuring effort.

Sega of America Making Changes Too

Sega of America is also seeing cutbacks and changes as part of the global restructuring. The North American office is transferring from San Francisco to Southern California by the summer with 120 jobs likely to be cut post-move to a smaller office.

Sonic Boom Gameplay

Upcoming games Total War: Arena, Total War Battles: Kingdoms, Football Manager, and Yakuza 5 released to Western markets will be going ahead as planned. Also, the Sonic Boom TV series currently airing on the Cartoon Network will be continuing.