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posted by Raff

SEGA Racing Studio | SEGA Rally | SEGA |

APR
8

Develop reports that according to a former employee, SEGA's fledgeling UK racing studio has been closed.

The studio, based in Solihull near Birmingham, was founded in 2005 with a number of UK racing game veterans involved. Their first and only game was a rejuvenation of the classic arcade game Sega Rally Championship, and released last September to generally average reviews and seemingly inadequate sales accompanied by heavy discounting at retail. I really liked it, and have just been getting back into it.

SRS supposedly had two projects underway, both of which have presumably been cancelled.

Update: Sega told Eurogamer, "Regrettably SEGA today announced that it is to commence consultation with a view to the unfortunate closure of the SEGA Racing Studio in Birmingham, UK.

"The decision is part of a review of SEGA’s Western Development Studios to ensure that each studio is a profitable entity in its own right, and unfortunately the SEGA Racing Studio’s five year plan would not result in a successful return for the SEGA business moving forward."

"SEGA would like to stress that there will be no changes within their other internal development studios."

-Shadowrun review

-Shadowrun developer closes

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Raff @ April 9, 2008, 10:31 am Quote
	"The decision is part of a review of SEGA’s Western Development Studios to ensure that each studio is a profitable entity in its own right, and unfortunately the SEGA Racing Studio’s five year plan would not result in a successful return for the SEGA business moving forward." Sounds like the clueless tosspots at SEGA Japan moved in and cleaned up Sega Europe.

Megadanxzero @ April 9, 2008, 11:18 am Quote
	I hate it when things like this happen. Not only do I really want to know what the other two games they were working on were, but the new SEGA Rally seemed like a genuinely enjoyable (And well made) game...

Raff @ April 9, 2008, 11:32 am

Quote

I don't really understand what went wrong. They must just be assuming that the next two games wouldn't sell well.

They made their own next-gen engine and a game with it in just over two years with a team of 60 people. That seems like pretty good going to me.

Even if Sega Rally sold badly, it wasn't because of any incompetence at SRS. They could just as easily have churned out need-4-speed-with-guns-and-crash-physics if they'd been told to.

Incidentally, someone on rllmuk came accross an arcade location test machine (called 'super challenge') at some Birmingham bowling place a month or two ago. A last ditch attempt?

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