Sega and its new trademarks: What's its game?

Sega Sammy is closing many of its remaining Japanese arcades, and Sega of America announced nearly 30 layoffs last month. So why would Sega Corporation be registering new arcade-hardware-related trademarks?

A report earlier this month in Siliconera noted that the company has trademarked two names, "Ringedge" and "Ringwide," along with a new circular logo featuring rings. The trademark application states that the new names will be used for arcade game boards, standalone video game machines, and/or arcade game machines with built-in screens.

Hardware? Sega? Sure, they used to do that, and one wonders what the console universe would be like now if the Genesis or the Dreamcast had survived. But that was a very long time ago -- the Dreamcast was discontinued in 2002 -- and though the company is perhaps more of a force in the Japanese market, they've done all right as a platform-agnostic games developer.

And there's a raft of Dreamcast-era games getting their trademark filings updated, too. ChuChu Rocket, Cosmic Smash, 18 Wheeler: American Pro Trucker, Jet Grind Radio, Rez, Sonic Shuffle, and Virtual On: Oratorio Tangram all have new paperwork in the US Patent and Trademark Office. It might mean fresh ports for those titles, as The Escapist noted on Wednesday, but there's no way of knowing until Sega shows its hand.

Sega, given the opportunity to comment to Betanews, did not.