Sega NFT
The new trademark filing published today by the Japan Patent Office was applied for in late December 2021 and includes the name Sega NFT.
Sega indicated last year that it intended to begin selling NFTs. However, last week its CEO Haruki Satomi appeared to have cooled on the idea somewhat, acknowledging the current negativity around the NFT landscape.
The new trademark could suggest that it intends to move ahead with its NFT plans before gauging any reaction from the community.
During a recent management meeting, Satomi indicated Sega would be willing to think back on plans to create NFTs if they were perceived as a “simple money-making” scheme, rather than something that can captivate users.
In terms of NFT, we would like to try out various experiments and we have already started many different studies and other options but nothing is decided at this point. There have been many announcements about this already including at overseas but there are users who show negative reactions at this point. They need to carefully assess many things such as how they can mitigate the negative elements, how much they can introduce this within the Japanese regulation, what will be accepted and what will not be by the users.
Many game companies have already started selling digital items as NFTs, such as Ubisoft and Konami, while other major brands have expressed enthusiasm for the tech trend.
Earlier this month, Konami announced that it would be auctioning off a Konami Memorial NFT Collection, featuring 14 unique artworks from the classic video game series Castlevania, celebrating its 35th anniversary.