Industry | SEGA Get New President

Irie has over 20 years experience with about 15 years in management with US-based games publishers. He was the highly acclaimed founding member of the game publisher AgeTec and was president and CEO for five years. He has also spent a lot of time in gaming in Japan.

"Hideaki has the leadership skills and experience to oversee all aspects of SEGA of America, and we look forward to having him ensure the success of the future strategic direction of our business in North America," said Hisao Oguchi, president, SEGA Corporation.

These are dangerous times for SEGA, they are making some quite big decisions to try and get some success. The fact of the matter is that since coming out of console development they have struggled. Whilst some games have been made to a superb standard others have been rushed and have a general feeling of no innovation. Sales-wise things have been even worse, the normally rock-steady SEGA Sports label has been suffering terribly and there seems to be a spiral of negativity around the company as this announcement is made. We only hope they can turn it around