The house of Sonic is closing up shop–in the USA anyway. As part of a massive restructuring plan, Sega has announced they will let go of 300 employees and close down their iconic San Francisco office.
While the news is still fresh, Sega-Sammy outlined a plan for voluntary retirement for around 120 employees as they focus more on PC and mobile titles. On top of that, their San Francisco office will be relocated to Southern California. As for their mascot, Sega plans on reinforcing their merchandising to generate more profit from the character. In other words, rebuild the Sonic Brand.
As of now, there’s a lot of uncertainty for the once dominant console manufacture turned third party publisher. Sega is coming off of two pretty big releases in Alien: Isolation, and Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric, so it’s surprising to hear all this talk of restructuring. But according to the release, Sega created a group to help with the reform in May 2014. In October they released a plan to divide the company into three groups, generate more revenue and appoint personnel in charge of this restructuring.
