...Interview: Peter Moore, President and COO of Sega of America:

During the Game Developers' Conference in March, NGenres own Andrew Weatherton held a lengthy interview with the head hauncho of Sega of America. Join us has he reflects on Sega's ways, its future, and the whole console gaming scene. Plus, maybe learn a little about Sega's Nintendo plans.

Peter Moore: Well, I’ve got about thirty minutes Andrew, and then I’ve got to head out to the office.  So, whatever you need.

NGenres: Well, why don’t I ask you some extraordinarily serious questions?

PM: Okay.

NG: What is your favorite Kool-Aid flavor?

PM: Kool-Aid?! [sigh] I have a bad relationship with Kool-Aid.  I used to be a soccer coach many years ago and I ran my own business, and the only way we could actually make any money at all was to water down the Kool-Aid.  So, it was an orange, whatever it was.  I drank an awful lot of Kool-Aid, [laughing] drink the Kool-Aid.

NG: What interests you about the videogame industry?

PM:  The great thing about the industry, I mean - I’m only two years into it now - is just the creative [pause] the speed of development. The way that, even in [just] two years, I’ve seen things change.  I mean, when I arrived, the ultimate was N64 and PlayStation, [and the] Dreamcast hadn’t even been shipped.  If you look at where games were two years ago, it was just before GDC when I came aboard and if you look at PS2 second generation, and in particular what we’ve just seen this morning with Xbox.  Just in 24 months how the industry has just hurdled along.   I enjoy the creativity, I enjoy the fact that it’s still entertainment based, and it really is for the users today, whether they like it or not, a huge part of what they do with their lives. 

NG:  Where do you see Sega in that?

PM:  I think that we are about to show our true colors eventually here, I mean we’ve been both very successful and extremely poor in the hardware business.  The Genesis really got this business going, certainly in this country and then, of course, we’ve had a number of different generations of hardware, and [the] Saturn was a disaster.  The Dreamcast, for the US, has been really successful but when we look at the cost of development for the hardware, the failures in Japan and Europe, it was impossible for us to continue. That is almost cathartic in that it will allow us to bring our content to various platforms – whether it be GameCube, Xbox, when we get our deals done with those guys, certainly PS2.  I’ve started to see now (I was in Japan ten days ago) and I’ve started to see games running on PS2 and it’s not going to be long before you see Sonic games running on the Game Boy Advance, you know ultimately I’m sure you’ll see Sonic on the GameCube, so from that point of view Sega is going to be a very powerful publisher – it’s gonna be up with EA and THQ.

NG:  I’ve always thought of Sega as a first-party with power in the fact that they have a console.  Now that you will be becoming a third-party developer, what do you see as your assets?

PM:  Well, the assets are our Ten Studios... nine studios in Japan, and Visual Concepts here in the US. [We have] an incredible array of franchises that have been grown from within.  The difference between us and [for example] EA is that we pretty much nurture all of our franchises, where as EA, if you look at who they are, well they’re NFL, NBA, Hockey, Tiger Woods, Harry Potter, Nascar, and these are all licensed properties from outside.  Where as we are, obviously, Sonic, but then Phantasy Star, Crazy Taxi, Shenmue, Jet Grind Radio, these are all unique – there’s Seaman, Space Channel 5, I mean these are incredible games that we’ve built from within, that we have not licensed.  Now, obviously, we do a lot of licensing as well, but our assets are an incredible library.  I don’t know how far back you go with Sega but, Panzer Dragoon, Shinobi, Nights, Golden Axe, Altered Beasts.

NG:  Are you working on a new Panzer Dragoon?

PM:  Well, these are all things that we can do.  I mean, great games that people instantly recognize – just see how your face lights up.  But, the thought of a new Panzar Dragoon on, let’s say PS2...  These are the types of things that we can pull out of our hat, we’ve been in this business – the videogame business for twenty years.  And in the entertainment business, if you go back to our roots which was pinball and what-have-you, for forty years.  Sega’s been around for a long time, it was developed by an American who had come out of the Korean war and was looking for a business in Asia.  The word ‘Sega’ comes from ‘Service Games,’ so that’s where Sega comes from.

NG:  How much did you know about Sega before you actually began working for them?

PM:  My son is a very avid gamer, and we had bought Sega Saturn for 399 dollars, and I couldn’t understand why he was complaining that they weren’t making any more games for it – it seemed pretty strange to me.  So, my experience with Sega prior to joining them was through my son, and now he’s a pretty hardcore gamer; he’ll be 15 next week and he is really into it so he’s my sampling of one, he tells me if a game is cool after five or ten minutes.  So, he’s good for me in regards to being my litmus test as far as what’s good and not good.  But I knew about Sega as far as it being a great brand along the lines of Nintendo and Sony, and so when the opportunity came for me to move to Sega and move back to San Francisco in particular, it was a great opportunity.

NG:  To what extent are you involved with the actual development of games?

PM:  Personally, very little, but my job as the president of the company is to make sure that the games are on time and on budget and the right game, sometimes we have to make hard decisions about games and cut them loose when they’re not performing.  But, from my point of view, I’ll attend software lineup meetings, milestone meetings, look at the games in progress, I go to Japan an awful lot and see games as they are developing.

NG:  So you spend a lot of time with third-party developers who are developing for the Dreamcast?

PM:  Yeah, I spent a lot of time last summer as we felt that we needed to really beef up our third-party support.  If you talk to any third-parties, they’ve all had visits from me personally in the past.  So whether it’s, in particular, Acclaim,  Activision, THQ, Infogrames, Interplay, I’ve been there, we’ve sat down and done business.

NG:  Does this free up time now that you only have Sega’s software development to worry about?

...Page 2; getting into Nintendo and Sega.