Sega lures THE Games manager to Dreamcast

The assembly of Sega's Dreamcast launch team has continued with the poaching of Jim Pride from Nintendo's UK distributor, THE Games.

Sega has already appointed Jean-Francois Cecillon as European chief executive (PC Dealer, 2 December) to ensure a successful launch. Pride, product manager at THE Games, left the distributor on 1 December and will join Sega as marketing manager.

A THE representative confirmed the move, adding: 'Jim's been here for five years. There's no sour grapes - it was time to move on. It won't affect us as we've already tied up Christmas.'

But industry insiders were unconvinced as the Hampshire distributor has already lost marketing manager Rob Borland, who left to become European marketing manager at Coors Beer.

The Dreamcast launch is vital for Sega in Europe. The Japanese giant's Saturn console was buried in the war with Sony and Nintendo, the console being totally withdrawn from the US market. The result of the rout was clear in its global losses of Y32.8 billion and a charge of Y40 billion for the year ending 31 March from its US operation.

Paul Donnelly, managing director of Gem, said: 'Sega is being very cold-blooded about the whole launch. It has been gearing up for the launch for a long time, getting everything in place. It has learnt a lot from past mistakes.'

Nick Gibson, analyst at Durlacher, added: 'Sega was downsizing its European operation throughout the 1990s, now it has to bring the operation up to full tilt for the Dreamcast launch.'