The Sega Central Thread "I swear, it's gotten good"

[Badnik Mechanic]

Before you say 'doesn't this topic exist'  No it does not! That is for the old Sega Central, that is for the bad Sega Central, this one is for the Sega Central which is actually pretty good. 

In May 2014, Sega announced a new series called 'Sega Central' which was their version of Nintendo Direct, long story short... it was awful. It was so bad, from what I've heard on the grapevine, a Sonic license holder hated it so much he refused to allow his licensed product on it!

 Anyway, skip ahead to around November 2015, and Sega Europe gets a new community manager, who has pretty much transformed the show, and it's now actually pretty good.

The show is now shorter: around 2-5 min per episode.

The show is now semi regular: typically there's been an episode every week since the start of December. 

One presenter: Community Manager Dan fronts it.

Very focused format: Nothing drags on for too long, nothing is too short.

Community Interaction: There's finally been competitions! Even Tails Channel had a guest spot on it.

It actually has new information on it: No really it does!

Is it perfect: Mmmmm no.... Dan is doing a great job, but you can tell at times he's nervous, though he has gotten a lot better from when he first started, and you can tell he's being made to read strictly from a script, there are also some slightly cringe worthy jokes.

Don't believe me it's gotten better? Here is the newest episode at the time of writing.

 

Yeah I'll be the first to admit that Dan is clearly reading from a script, but my god he's so much better than who we had before, he has enthusiasm, he sounds excited for the games, that was the biggest complaint from people when this started, they sounded bored and it made the games look/sound awful. 

Recently they held a vote for what you wanted the next episode to be about, the winner was 'news from Japan' the next episode is about just that. 

It seems that they are really trying to turn this around and Dan & his team seem to be working quite hard to do a good job with it, so I figure we should also give this a new fresh chance since the previous one was so awful.

 

[FriendBot]

That's actually really nice, it ain't no Nintendo Direct but it's quite nice.

Dan is getting used to his role and it does look he's having fun doing it, good on the ol' chap!

Got nothing else to say really, you pretty much summed it up really Hoggy!

Quite the nice improvement!

[shdowhunt60]

I thought this was about the Sonic Central app that was supposed to come for Android and iOS that never came.

[Guest]

I'd say those videos are more than slightly cringey... Dan just doesn't seem very suitable for the presenter role.

[Barry the Nomad]

Old SEGA Central's major problem was that the presenters clearly were not fans or SEGA staff, and if they were they came off incredibly fake. They also would cover events, but the videos would be released long after the event occurred. Oh yeah, and I think they had some awkward let's plays.

New SEGA Central isn't half bad, it is seemingly weekly and presented in a bite sized format. Information is current and the notion of reveals on the show has lead me to watch it as soon as they upload for the possibility of a news tidbit. 

I'm not going to get too down on Dan. He seems like a nice guy and I like the effort he has put into the show - assuming the reboot was his idea. I do think they need a small bit of production assistance. The show could be tighter and Dan could act a little less awkward. Also, they should bring on a makeup artist. I'm not asking for new JonTron levels of makeup (Jon looks really weird with makeup), but just somebody to make Dan's face less shiny and lessen the redness. Dude is on camera, so might as well make him up a tad to make him presentable. Maybe I'm just spoiled by Aaron Webber's inherent good looks. 

So yeah, show is getting better and I give it a solid thumbs up. They have nowhere to go but up.

[Failinhearts]

If this really is SEGA's version of Nintendo Direct, I wonder if any new Sonic games will be announced through this webshow now.

Probably not, but still....

[Iamaspaz]

You sure it's gotten good? It still feels the same.