Sega Europe Not Planning Job Cuts

SoE Prez: We’re Still Hiring

Though 30 job losses at Sega of America pales compared to recent news of Microsoft cutting 5,000 and Sony cutting 8,000, it still spread fear among Sega faithful that more would be on the way.

But according to Sega Europe president Mike Hayes in an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, that particular arm is safe–and hiring.

Hayes told GI that Sega was the UK’s fourth biggest publisher last year.  As a result, they’re doing fine:

We’ve reinvented ourselves in the last five years – when I joined the company there were 30 staff, now with full time QA we’re up to 650-something.

In a way we’ve filled ourselves out, and we’re still filling out Spain and Australia, our network crew which covers Football Manager Live and our PlaySega venture.

So we’re actually in good shape, and we’re also having a very good trading year. In the market share results we were fourth biggest in the UK. It was Nintendo, EA, Activision Blizzard, then Sega – so we’re actually having a really good time.

Much of Sega Europe’s successcan be credited to the blockbuster success of Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games, which was one of the top overall sellers for 2008 in Britain.