Games giant Sega is to chop 300 jobs in Japan following its decision to ditch the Dreamcast console.

The workers will go via early retirement, and the company is accepting applications from today until March 12. The scheme, which will hit Dreamcast-related consumer product sales, development, and general HQ staff, will see the former Sony rival take a one-time loss of 1.3 billion yen ($11.2 million) in its financial year ending March 31.

Last month Sega confirmed it would stop making the Dreamcast games console at the end of March. It plans to concentrate on making games for other platforms such as PlayStation, GameCube and Xbox. The company has slashed the price of Dreamcasts (from £149.99 to £99.99 in the UK, and $150 to $100 in the US) in the hope of offloading the machines. It plans to make 30 games for Dreamcast over the year.

The company is also expected to see its fourth consecutive year in the red, with losses of 58.3 billion yen for the year ending in March.

Earlier this month email newsletter MCV reported that Sega Europe made an unrevealed number of employees redundant, including Dreamcast guru Mark Maslovicz. ®

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