Sega president and chief publishing officer Kenji Matsubara has announced his resignation, only citing it was for “personal reasons.”

In an official notice distributed by Sega Sammy Holdings (thanks GamesIndustry.biz), the reason for the resignation was only listed as “personal reasons.” GamesIndustry.biz and Video Games Chronicle report Matsubara joined Sega in 2014 as an chief technology officer for Sega Networks Company. He had served as president since 2017.

Prior to this, Matsubara had been president and CEO of  Koei Tecmo for nine years, and two years in the Japanese branch of Zynga. Speaking in an interview with YGC in 2019. Matsubara explained the differences between working in Japan and western countries.

“I think it is extremely important to think about what it means to be Japanese and what kind of place Japan is when we work with people from different countries. We don’t have to have a universal commonality. Instead, we should think about our differences and use them to discuss the best way to approach things. Japanese people aren’t usually aware of their unique identity, but I think they should know the special characteristics of Japan when they work with people from other countries. They should accept each other’s differences and discuss solutions together. I believe it is important to have a positive attitude.

[…]

When I became a company executive, I always told myself to ‘Create globally, then deliver globally.’ Sega has many game creation studios not only in Japan but also in Asia and Europe. This is what it means to ‘create globally.’ This is a unique trait that our rival firms do not share.

This is the same with ‘delivering globally.’ We have marketing divisions all over the world. The same can be said for other companies, but that’s because there are consumers all over the world. Because of this global system, half of Sega’s employees and profits come from outside of Japan.

[…] By building the skills to ‘Create globally, then deliver globally’ and localizing the products properly, we can create games that will be played all over the world. I want everyone working for our company to understand that and put those skills into action.”

Image: CEDEC