Charles Bellfield, formerly Sega of America's vice president and a key person behind the launch of the Sega Dreamcast console, has died.
Bellfield held numerous vice president roles in the video game industry over the course of a decade, including at Sega, Capcom and Codemasters.
He was responsible for the marketing of titles like
Dead Rising and
Lost Planet at Capcom, but it was his work on the Sega Dreamcast that was really notable, looking after the launch of the hardware in the U.S., all the way up to its demise.
Bellfield was also one of the people responsible for Sega's large-scale move out of the hardware business. In a Gamasutra feature from 2009,
Bellfield described the "Manifesto of the Future" that he put together with Peter Moore (now EA COO), suggesting that Sega could not be a hardware business player anymore.
Most recently, Bellfield had left the video game industry to pursue a career in the digital audio space instead. He was general manager for PURE North America at the time of his death, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Multiple people confirmed Bellfield's death via Twitter over the weekend, including Peter Moore himself,
who described him as "A friend, confidant, life of any party. Video game industry PR icon and all-around great guy. Gone too soon..."
