Aaron ThomasSega has acquired the development studio, Sports Interactive, according to a press release from Sega. Sports Interactive is best known for the successful Football Manager series – which with only two titles from the franchise released so far, has sold in excess of 1.5 million copies.
"Football Manager is an extremely successful brand for Sega and one of the most significant titles for our European line-up," commented Naoya Tsurumi – CEO: Sega. "This acquisition illustrates that we are achieving our objectives and have our strategic planning up and running. Although we still have a lot more to do, we feel that this is yet another huge step towards strengthening our standing within the European market."
The first titles to be released under the new partnership will be Football Manager 2006 for Xbox 360 and Football Manager Handheld for the PSP portable entertainment system, both out for release on April 13th 2006.