Here's how things are working now. Sega of America and Sega of Europe CEO Naoya Tsurumi is now responsible for Sega operations in all three major markets, adding Sega of Japan to his rather large plate. Meanwhile, Mike Hayes will be stepping into the newly-created position of President & COO of both Sega of America and Sega of Europe, which more than likely entails a great deal more air travel.

"I'm delighted to be heading up the SEGA Western territories at such an exciting time in the company's resurgence as a leading videogame publisher around the globe," said Hayes. "As shown at E3 last week, SEGA has a winning line-up of titles over the next 12 months and beyond. The management changes announced today will ensure that SEGA's Consumer Business is positioned for long-term growth and success."

Hopefully this new, unified Sega will continue the recent trend of not doing anything with the Sonic franchise other than the odd racing or sports spin-off to appease the kids, while delivering daring new experiences like Bayonetta and MadWorld, even if the latter sold like hotcakes laced with poison.

Jeffery, whose executive credits include stints at Sega and LucasArts, will assume the role of chief publishing officer at ngmoco, helming the company's new Plus+ Publishing group. According to the official announcement of ngmoco's new Plus+ endeavors, Plus+ Publishing will provide infrastructure to developers looking to capitalize on the company's publishing system.

That includes the Plus+ Network, which integrates social networking features and cross-promotional options into games. ngmoco touts the Plus+ Network's "persistent profile" letting "players of all skill levels to connect, compete and progress."

ngmoco's lineup of free-to-play and paid titles includes Rolando, Mazefinger, WordFu and the recently released Star Defense.

The Wii is a very cost effective platform to experiment with. There is a lot of crap coming out for the Wii in general. But if it’s not a good game, it doesn’t sell. That flood of crap will die down as publishers become more coherent. The Wii is a great opportunity for hitting hardcore gamers. No one is doing that. With Mad World from Platinum Games, we are trying to show that millions of Wii games want to move on to mature games. They don’t have to have an Xbox 360 to do that...

It’s [the Wii is a fad] very much disproven. People do play with the Wii like crazy for a while. It gathers cobwebs. Then they bring it out again. But kids are such a big part of the gaming community now and they’re demanding Wiis from their parents. Those kids will shape the future of gaming and they’re not a fad. Microsoft and Sony have to think about how to make their experiences more gaming in that way.

If more publishers thought like SEGA, you know, we'd probably have better Wii games.

Q&A: an interview with Sega’s Simon Jeffery on monkeying around with iPhone games and the Wii [Venture Beat via VG247]

In Jeffery's defense, the man isn't in human resources. And no one wants a second visit from Sega of Japan's correction ninja squad. They'll cut ya.

Jeffery: Yu Suzuki Still With Sega As 'Creative Officer' [Gamasutra]

E3 was a strange beast this year. We had an extremely strong product showing, had some great meetings, and got our messaging over pretty strongly – all at an event that had all the atmosphere of a large hospital corridor...we’d like to see something that represents the fun, dynamic nature of the industry a little better without going back to the insanity that was E3 of old.

It's OK, Simon. We miss the booth crumpet as well.

‘E3 felt like a hospital corridor’ [MCV]

God Hand 2? Viewtiful Joe 3? Not coming, at least not from the Platinum Games, formerly Clover, guys. But that doesn't mean we wont' be seeing echoes of those games in their fancy, new Sega published games.

See Brian try to talk the head of Sega of America into launching Dreamcast 2 to take on the Wii.
Dreamcast 2? Seaman 2? Shenmue 3? Hear Simon Jeffery crush all of your Sega wet dreams.

We explained it in detail, why Aliens didn't make E3. But it's so much more soothing hearing the news come in the Anglified voice of SEGA of America's head honcho Simon Jeffery.

When we talked to SEGA of America president Simon Jeffery at E3 last week, he showered us with knowledge and know-how. He also threw in a quick mention of a game we hadn't heard anything about — officially, that is — Resident Evil 5 for the Wii. To say that we were surprised to hear it mentioned would be an understatement, despite our non-reaction if front of Mr. Jeffery.

We followed up with a couple folks about the on camera slip of the tongue, starting with Nintendo's Reggie Fils-Aime.

Discussing our Executive Pop Quiz, in which we asked Nintendo Corporate Affairs VP Denise Kaigler if Resident Evil 5 was getting a Wii version, Mr. Fils-Aime fired back with a "Not yet!" and a laugh that left us more confused than when we started the question.

Talking to Capcom's Chris Kramer outside the publisher's E3 meeting room, he seemed genuinely surprised to hear of such a product. We told him that we already knew about the existence of Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop and he suggested that Mr. Jeffery was simply confusing the two products.

As far as a Wii port of the PlayStation 3/Xbox 360 title, Kramer asked of us "Have you seen Resident Evil 5?" implying that such a port would be almost impossible, adding that he'd not heard any such product was in the works for Nintendo's platform.

Finally, we followed up with Mr. Jeffery himself who said the mention of Resident Evil 5 for the Wii was just a "simple slip of the tongue."

"We’d been discussing the Res Evil 5 showing at the Microsoft event earlier, and it was still on my brain – that’s all," he wrote in an e-mail.

After the surprise announcement that Dead Rising was making the transition to the Wii — as Resident Evil 4 did, very successfully — we wouldn't discount anything at this point. Capcom seems to love all platforms equally. Resident Evil 5 for Wii has been officially denied, albeit in roundabout ways, so we won't cancel our pre-orders for the superior Wii version just yet.

But who knows what the future holds?

Among the revelations: Sega starting courting the former Clover folks as soon as there the problems with Capcom became public and Mad World was created mostly behind closed doors on Sega's faith.

Check out our other Jeffery and Sega stuff here:
Another Mario Sonic Collaboration in the Works?
Sega: The iPhone is as Powerful as the Dreamcast
Sega E3 Coverage

Worldwide SEGA has sold about 10 million copies and, as Jeffery pointed out, the upcoming Olympics will likely provide a boost to sales of the game when they kick off.

Will there be another Mario and Sonic collaboration? Jeffery was being coy about the details, but he's certainly all for it.

"We would be delighted to do another game with Mario and Sonic," he said.

"There are no plans for [Shenmue III] right now," Jeffery told us. Despite being one of the most requested Sega "fanboy" titles, it certainly didn't sound like the publisher has much interest in or resources dedicated to the project.

Jeffery was at least less final on Shenmue III's fate than he was on a North American release of Seaman 2. We asked about the still unpublished PlayStation 2 oddball's Western release, to which Jeffery flat-out said "No."

Much of the product that comes out of Japan isn't really suitable or appropriate culturally for the Western market, and Sega has become the first of the Japanese gaming companies to recognize that the global market has various tastes and isn't necessarily just one great big Japanese market.