The Japanese company will use the Redmond-based company’s Azure-based, next-gen development environment for its new games.

We recently reported that SEGA is partnering with Microsoft to develop next-generation games using the Azure cloud platform.

Now, we learned new details about SEGA’s and Microsoft’s announcement which revealed that SEGA’s new titles would be global, online, community-based, and focusing on IP utilization. The collaboration will help the Japanese firm to produce large-scale, international games. The alliance forms a vital part of SEGA’s mid to long-term strategy, allowing it to move forward with its Super Game initiative (planned to launch in 2026-2027) to develop new and innovative titles.

The companies will look to build further technological evolutions through cooperation, with network infrastructure and communication tools required for global online services being a key priority. SEGA’s switch to a next-gen development platform will effectively adapt to diversifying work styles and potential infrastructural changes.

“With the world now more connected than ever following the widespread deployment of 5G and cloud services in recent years, consumers can more easily enjoy high-quality entertainment content at any time. Within this highly connected environment, the games industry’s ecosystem continues to evolve and expand as more sophisticated tools and technologies become available. As such, video games continue to grow as a major medium for gamers globally, with access to a vast range of gaming experiences and communities becoming more diverse and attainable. This proposed alliance represents SEGA looking ahead, and by working with Microsoft to anticipate such trends as they accelerate further in future, the goal is to optimize development processes and continue to bring high-quality experiences to players using Azure cloud technologies,” SEGA’s press release wrote.

“We are very pleased to announce today that we are considering a strategic alliance with Microsoft to help develop SEGA’s new ‘Super Game’ initiative as well as build a next-generation game development environment. By considering a strategic partnership with Microsoft, we seek to advance our game development further so that our titles can be enjoyed by fans all over the world; in this regard, we aim to build an alliance that utilizes both SEGA’s powerful game development capabilities and Microsoft’s cutting-edge technology and development environment,” Yukio Sugino, SEGA Corporation’s president and COO wrote.

“SEGA has played such an iconic role in the gaming industry and has been a tremendous partner over the years. We look forward to working together as they explore new ways to create unique gaming experiences for the future using Microsoft cloud technologies. Together we will reimagine how games get built, hosted, and operated, to add more value to players and SEGA alike,” Sarah Bond, Microsoft Corporation’s CVP, added.

So there was no acquisition, but we got an alliance.

Source: Gematsu