SEGA Selects EMC to Help Develop Hi Def Videogame

TOKYO - June 24, 2008 -

EMC Japan K.K, a fully owned subsidiary of EMC Corporation, the world leader in information infrastructure solutions, today announced that SEGA Corporation (SEGA, HQ: Ota, Tokyo) selected the industry leading EMC® CLARiX® CX3 UltraScale™ networked storage solution in the development of Ryū ga Gotoku Kenzan!, the third installment of the Yakuza video game series. Ryū ga Gotoku Kenzan! (龍が如く 見参！) was developed and released exclusively in Japan by SEGA Corporation exclusively for the Sony PlayStation 3® platform on March 6th, 2008.

Ryū ga Gotoku Kenzan! differs from previous versions of the game in a number of ways. Not only is set in the Edo period in Japan (early 1600s) instead of a modern day fictional "Kamuro-cho" amusement area, but this version was released on Blu-ray Disc and features superior picture quality and High-Definition (HD) specifications, with almost twice the picture resolution of conventional game images. These changes resulted in greater complexity during the software development process and generated more than four times the amount of information as conventional games. In order to meet these challenges SEGA selected EMC's CLARiX CX3 system for the development of this game, replacing its previous Direct Attached Storage (DAS) solutions.

"Developing next generation game software requires pushing the boundaries and as we developed the next generation of Yakuza, we realized our existing storage solution was insufficient for our needs," said Mr. Mitsunori Fujimoto, Manager of the Development IT Support Team at SEGA CS Development Control of SEGA Corporation. "We picked the EMC CLARiX CX3 UltraScale system to help us manage our information, attain the highest level of system expansion and robustness and speed time to market," he added.

SEGA's selected the CLARiX CX3 system for its performance, robustness and scalability. The initial order capacity was 4 Terabytes (TB), which soon expanded more than 8 times to 34 TB before the launch of the game in March 2008. The same CLARiX CX3 system scaled to meet the incremental needs of the game developers, who previously saved data on local disks.

Developing an HD-quality game exclusively for the Sony PlayStation 3 ® platform generated a lot of information and collaboration. "Nearly 100 developers at SEGA participated in the development of Ryū ga Gotoku Kenzan! and our information infrastructure had to cope with both the increase in capacity as well as complexity," said Mr. Toshihiro Togo, Administrator of IT Support Team of SEGA Corporation. "Looking ahead, as HD-quality software games becomes mainstream, it is critical for SEGA's systems to have a robust capacity for expandability, and performance. Our experience with CX3 in the making of Ryū ga Gotoku Kenzan! has resulted in SEGA implementing other EMC products for future game development," he added.

As the existing software code is multi-purposed for sequels and delivery over cellular phone platforms, SEGA needed to have access to its complete library of software code and images. A vast majority of this had been archived on tape libraries in the past, resulting in poor data recoverability and protection, a longer wait for access and in some cases, actual data loss. EMC is working with SEGA to migrate this data to EMC backup and archival storage systems in order to improve data safety and convenience, and to reduce the software development period.

Mr. Mitsunori Fujimoto also said, "After system startup, EMC has continued its services including the execution of preventive measures before actual problems such as a capacity shortage occurs. Regarding its support system, EMC keeps further ahead of the pack than others." Mr. Toshihiro Togo added: "EMC provides a high level of quality not only for its products but also in its accurate responses to our questions regarding the TCO and maintenance services."

Toshio Morohoshi, President and Representative Director of EMC Japan KK said, "The EMC CLARiX CX3 systems have become a global benchmark for midrange storage and are in use at thousands of customers sites around the world. They were designed from the ground up to provide industry leading levels of reliability, flexibility, performance and ease-of-use. We are proud that SEGA Corporation selected this system in the development of such an important project and we look forward to working closely with SEGA to meet all their information infrastructure needs."

The EMC CLARiX CX3 family of networked storage systems, delivers the highest levels of availability for midrange storage arrays, and is used by 83 companies on the Forbes 100 list of leading public companies. Besides being the global market leader in midrange storage networks, the CLARiX CX3 platform has also achieved the coveted "Five 9s" availability – 99.999% of uptime and has received the Network Equipment Building System (NEBS) Level 3 and European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) EN 300 386 certification for reliability and serviceability in adverse conditions. For more information about on EMC CLARiX CX3 "Five 9s," including an IDC whitepaper entitled: "Storage System Availability: No Longer Just a High-End Requirement" visit www.EMC.com/analyst/analystview.jsp?id=482.

Ryū ga Gotoku Kenzan!, is the sequel to Ryu ga Gotoku released by SEGA Corporation in October 2006, selling more than 2,300,000 copies. Ryu ga Gotoku featured a battle located in the fictional "Kamuro-cho" amusement area, with the voice talents of Tetsuya Watari. Ryū ga Gotoku Kenzan!, has seen the action transferred to the city of Kyoto during the early Edo period. Its story is a human drama that magnificently portrays the way of life of Samurai warriors who fought with swords. The main voice actors are the famous Shota Matsuda, Hiroki Matsukata, and Naoto Takenaka.