SN Systems forms technical alliance with Sega
Bristol-based SN Systems has increased its presence in the Japanese games market by opening an office in Tokyo and signing an agreement with Sega, moves that will go some way to strengthening their position in the region.
SN Systems, the Bristol-based producer of games software tools, has opened a dedicated office in Tokyo, Japan, headed by the company's vice president of Business Development Tomo Ohno, and has signed a technical alliance with Sega.
The Tokyo office has been created for several reasons, not least of which is SN's sales success over the last year in Japan. With sales 400 per cent up, the Bristol-based firm has established the dedicated outpost in Japan - which will be supported by Japanese-speaking employees based in the UK - in order to help drive them even further.
Meanwhile, the technical alliance with Sega is, the company says, the first step towards forging a strategic alliance between SN Systems and Sega. SN is already at work converting Sega Game Libraries to make them compatible with their own "ProDG" tools suite.
Commenting on the changes, Tomo Ohno said: " The structure of games development is still very different depending on where you are in the world. What we want to do is communicate our experiences to studios on an international basis and demonstrate how using the correct tools can dramatically increase productivity and help avoid common pitfalls. As games become increasingly complex, games developers could really benefit from looking at the experience of tools developers and other studios around the world. We have worked with many studios in many different countries and are in a prime position to gather and distribute this knowledge through our tools."
And Sega's corporate R&D officer H. Morishita commented: "Having access to cutting edge development tools is a fundamental part of our business and we are delighted to have signed this technical alliance with SN Systems. I expect the closer collaboration between our two companies to inspire a new creativity in effective and high quality game development."
SN has also formed an alliance with middleware gurus Criterion, whose RenderWare software Sega is using to speed multi-platform development of their Sonic Heroes title.