SEGA boss says company’s role was to reinvent rock & roll, Nintendo’s was pop

SEGA president Shuji Utsumi recently spoke with Eurogamer about a variety of topics, and at one point, Nintendo was actually brought into the discussion.

Utsumi was discussing the company’s comeback with games and movies. SEGA has a bunch of different projects in the pipeline, with a number of franchises set to return after many years. That brought about a comparison – Utsumi said “SEGA’s role was to invent rock & roll” whereas Nintendo’s was “pop music, good music, jazz”.

The full excerpt is as follows:

Sonic’s made a comeback in both games and now with the movies, which is symbolic of SEGA’s resurgence. But you’re reinvesting in some of the classic SEGA IPs as well, Jet Set Radio, Crazy Taxi…

Utsumi: We made that announcement at the Game Awards [2023]… With the first round [of announcements] I was basically focusing on trying to revive Sonic, Yakuza, and Persona. Three IPs that can be even stronger. And to make SEGA more like SEGA… SEGA has so many great IPs and they’ve aged very well, and they could appeal to the market again.

Some have been dormant for so long.

Utsumi: SEGA somehow invented – if you compare the game business to music business – SEGA’s role was to invent rock & roll, compared to Nintendo. Nintendo’s like pop music, good music, jazz…

But then SEGA comes along and is like Led Zeppelin?

Utsumi: Exactly. Pink Floyd, Abba, and Queen!

SEGA always had a fun edge.

Utsumi: SEGA  had that kind of style [back then]. SEGA position was like, ‘If you have attitude, SEGA’s the company for you, rather than Nintendo’, because of the games, because of the style, because of coolness or the kind of attitude. We have such beautiful content value in SEGA, and some other IPs, so we’re trying to revive it with a little bit of the flavour of hip-hop now.

New entries in the Crazy Taxi, Golden Axe, Jet Set Radio, Shinobi, and Streets of Rage series are all in development at SEGA. These are rumored to be appearing on Nintendo Switch 2, but that has not been confirmed.

Thanks to Eurogamer for the news above.