'I want to make SEGA really shiny again,' president Shuji Utsumi says

SEGA's new president wants to bring the spark back to the beloved games company and stop playing it so safe.

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SEGA could become more of a dazzling eye-catching spectacle again, just like it was in its prime during the 1990s and the early 2000s. At least that's the game plan of new SEGA of America and SEGA Europe exec Shuji Utsumi, who plans to re-ignite the brand's image and rally the offensive against the competition.

"I want to make Sega really shiny again," Utsumi told the BBC in a recent interview. What makes Utsumi's words so interesting is that he was head of SEGA Japan during the Dreamcast era, and he's certainly aiming to bring that era back.

"SEGA has been somehow losing confidence. But why? Sega has a great RPG group, SEGA has amazing IPs, SEGA is a really well-known brand. So I was like, hey, now is not the time to be defensive - but more offensive."

How will SEGA execute its plan? Right now they're doing extremely well for themselves with four separate RPGs that have each sold over 1 million units, including the recent Metaphor ReFantazio, which sold 1 million copies in its first day.

Elsewhere in the interview, Utsumi was quoted that he wanted to "bring a rock and roll mentality" to SEGA, presumably hearkening back to the weird experimental Dreamcast days of yore.

This rock n' roll attitude will also manifest in a big new retro renaissance at SEGA, with multiple classics like Jet Set Radio, Shinobi, Crazy Taxi, and Golden Axe getting new modern entries.

SEGA even announced a new Virtua Fighter game...yes really.

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That's the AAA front covered, but SEGA's other plans include what could be an interesting new multi-game subscription service--think SEGA's own version of Xbox Game Pass with first-party games offered on the catalog.

SEGA is also trying to forge into a new kind of game category called Super Games, which are basically a new kind of spin of live service titles. A big example of what SEGA is trying to do with Super Games is Phantasy Star Online 2, which has generated over 1 billion yen in revenues since release.