BREAKING STORY: Company releases press statement that highlights Sega considering Microsoft Azure partnership for future titles.
Hot off the presses Monday in Japan, Sega has announced what could be a key strategic partnership in gaming. They along with Microsoft have agreed in principal to explore ways to make large scale global games that utilize the cloud. These games would ultimately be built on Microsoft’s Azure cloud service. Part of this exploratory agreement reads as follows:
With the world now more connected than ever following the widespread deployment of 5G and cloud
services in recent years, consumers can more easily enjoy high-quality entertainment content at any
time. …
It also says ….
… Video games continue to grow as a major medium for gamers globally, with access to a vast
range of gaming experiences and communities becoming more diverse and attainable. This
proposed alliance represents SEGA looking ahead, and by working with Microsoft to anticipate such
trends as they accelerate further in future, the goal is to [optimize] development processes and
continue to bring high-quality experiences to players using Azure cloud technologies.
It continues to read…
Microsoft and SEGA have agreed upon the foundation for this alliance and through mutual
cooperation, will look to build [further] technological evolutions with areas such as the network
infrastructure and communication tools required for global online services being a key priority.
Executives from both parties have made comments regarding this agreement. President and COO of Sega, Yukio Sugino, commented, ” We are very pleased to announce today that we are considering a strategic alliance with Microsoft to help develop SEGA’s new “Super Game” initiative as well as build a next-generation game development environment. ”
Sarah Bond, CVP of Microsoft, says, ” SEGA has played such an iconic role in the gaming industry… Together we will re-imagine how games get built, hosted, and operated, with a goal of adding more value to players and SEGA alike.”
Microsoft coordinated what appears to be a similar exploratory agreement with console rival PlayStation in May 2019. PlayStation agreed, among other things, to explore utilizing the Azure cloud service to power their PSNow cloud gaming & subscription based service.
If this agreement matures into an actual partnership that produces games, this could mean huge ramifications in the cloud gaming space. Rival Google has made it known they are looking to make similar cloud gaming partnerships. They already have such relationship up and running with AT&T. We will continue to watch this breaking news for further developments.
