Creative Cat Productions | Tom Kalinske was fired from SEGA? New insights from Shoichiro Irimajiri reveal what happened to Sega @creativecatproductions | Uploaded July 2023 | Updated October 2024, 1 day ago.
Recently a translation of a business presentation made by former SEGA CEO, Shoichiro Irimajiri, revealed new insights into the story about what actually happened to SEGA of America during the mid 90s. For many years to story about Tom Kalinske’s time as the CEO of SEGA of America has been dictated by the popularity of the business novel, “Console Wars,” which was based almost entirely upon interviews with Kalinske and other former SEGA of America top brass. Thus, the story as we know it, has always portrayed Tom Kalinske as a kind of hero, with SEGA of Japan serving as a kind of villain that stood in the way due to jealousy. However, Irimajiri reveals that not only did Tom Kalinske NOT voluntarily leave SEGA, without being first told to step down, but it turns out that SEGA of America was not profitable at all during Tom Kalinske’s time at the time…..indeed the company was bleeding tens of millions of dollars annually. But how can this be? When SEGA outsold the Super Nintendo from 1991 through 1993?