Sega appoints European chief as it brings marketing back in house

Sega has appointed Matt Woodley as European marketing director as it gears up to reassert its position in the computer games market.

Woodley will join Sega in February from Infogrames, where he was European marketing manager. He will report to Mike Sherlock, who was recently appointed as European sales and marketing director (MW December 5, 2002). Sherlock returned to Sega after an 18-month absence spent at games distributor Andromeda. He is now working alongside chief executive officer Naoya Tsurumi in a largely sales-focused role.

Infogrames and Sony PlayStation are responsible for marketing and distributing Sega’s games. Both contracts end in April, when Sega will bring its marketing and distribution functions back in house.

The Japanese company abandoned its games console, Dreamcast, in February 2001, and reinvented itself as a third-party games publisher. It now makes games for Sony PlayStation 2 (PS2), Microsoft’s Xbox, and Nintendo’s GameCube. Its latest game for PS2, Space Channel 5 Part 2, will be released in February.

Last July, Sega was tipped to acquire Infogrames, following a comment by president of Sega America Tetsu Kayama in the Wall Street Journal, that Sega would snap up European and US video games companies.