CrunchGear

This week it sure seemed strange to hear that Nintendo’s Mario and SEGA’s Sonic would be appearing in a video game together, but this was no doubt just to test the waters for a possible merger of the two former rivals. SEGA exited the hardware arena in 2000 after lackluster sales of the Dreamcast video game system, which had been released in September of 1999. For a while last year it looked like Nintendo might “pull a SEGA” and too refocus their business on software rather than hardware systems. But the introduction of the Wii has shown that the house that Mario built still has a lot of punch left. And to strengthen its brand Nintendo is merging with its former rival, which will give Nintendo a stronger foothold with popular franchises including Sonic, Virtua Fighter and Virtua Tennis. SEGA will likely stop supporting titles for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 as a result. And while SEGA has become a recent publisher of PC games, with popular franchises including Medieval II: Total War, it is likely that this business will be sold off. After all, what’s Nintendo need to do with PC titles?