Sega Of America Restructures Marketing Department

As part of the company's transition from a hardware manufacturer to platform-agnostic third-party publisher, Sega is creating two marketing divisions, one for sports and one for entertainment titles. The company says it will begin hiring personnel immediately into these new marketing groups. As part of the restructuring announcement, Sega announced two personnel changes. In the first personnel announcement, the company said that Mike Fischer joined the company as group director of product marketing for the Entertainment division. Fischer previously worked as director of marketing and director of business development at Namco Hometek. He will be responsible for positioning, advertising and channel marketing all of Sega's character-based, action, adventure, role-playing, fighting, driving and puzzle games. In addition, Fischer will be responsible for growing and maintaining established Sega Entertainment franchises such as Sonic The Hedgehog, Virtua Fighter and Shenmue. Sega also today announced that Charles Bellfield, formerly vice president of corporate and marketing communications for Sega, is now the vice president of business strategy and corporate affairs. Bellfield will be responsible for corporate communications, strategic planning and the management of investor relations with Sega Corporation in Japan. Additionally, Bellfield will serve as a primary contact for all of Sega's gaming and non-gaming hardware partners.