Sega: No changes to Iron Man, Thor, Captain America deals

Disney's acquisition of Marvel won't affect the licensing deals Sega has with the comic book creator to produce games based on its Iron Man, Thor and Captain America superheroes, the publisher has confirmed to GamesIndustry.biz.

"At this time there are no changes to Sega's existing licensing agreement for the Iron Man 2, Thor and Captain America videogame titles," said the company.

"We're hard at work on the Iron Man 2 game and committed to making all three of these titles hugely successful working right alongside the combined forces at Disney and Marvel."

Beyond the three characters it already has signed up, the publisher said it is looking forward to working with both Disney and Marvel on "future ventures", going on to congratulate Disney on the acquisition.

Disney paid USD 4 billion (GBP 2.5 billion) for the superhero stable in a deal announced yesterday.

In a subsequent investor call, the company's CEO, Robert Iger, said that while third-party relationships for licensing can be "quite attractive", previous experience had shown bringing deals in-house was better for product quality and often proved more financially lucrative.

Sega's exclusive, multi-year global licensing agreement with Marvel allows it to develop and distribute games for console, handheld and PC platforms based on the original comics and forthcoming films of Iron Man, Thor and Captain America.