Sega's UK-based racing games developer was created to revitalize the company and bring back to the public the joy of playing high quality racing games. It seems that they didn't manage to do it or, at least, bring big enough profit, since Sega has announced that they had to close the studio's doors.

During its almost three-year existence, Sega Racing Studio only released one game, SEGA Rally Revo, which was pretty well received by the public, but had some not-too-good sales. In an e-mail sent to Next Gen, the company stated, "The decision is part of a review of Sega's Western Development Studios to ensure that each studio is a profitable entity in its own right, and unfortunately the Sega Racing Studio's 5 year plan would not result in a successful return for the Sega business moving forward. Sega would like to stress that there will be no changes within their other internal development studios."

But there were some real changes, having in mind that many other Sega studios have been shut down this year, including Iron Lore Entertainment, Stormfront Studios, Castaway Entertainment, Perpetual Entertainment and most recently, Pseudo Interactive. This is the reason why rumors regarding some "serious" Sega acquisitions could be announced in the future.

Games industry veteran Bruce Everiss considers that a possible reason for the poor sales SEGA Rally Revo recorded is the release date that coincided with the that of the much popular Halo 3, which "wasn't very bright".

Still, having in mind that Sega was not the only developer to have a racing games branch in the UK and there are Codemasters, Black Rock, Bizarre Creations, Eutechnyx, Evolution, Reflections, Sony Liverpool and Criterion, the staff will probably have no problem in finding new jobs and continue to do what they know best: creating great racing video games.