It's no mean feat powering up from being video game publisher No. 14 in 2004 to becoming the industry's sixth largest third-party publisher today. But Sega of America is tasting that success. Industry analysts credit its president and COO since 2005, Simon Jeffery, as the force behind the company's struggle to reinvent itself.

In fact, come May 2, when the Marvel Enterprises-produced Iron Man blasts into movie theaters, Sega is counting on the day-and-date release of its video game version to inject even more life into what was once a very anemic portfolio.

"Historically, Sega hasn't been part of the license business," explains Jeffery. "But we felt that in order to gain market momentum, we absolutely needed to have big game-appropriate movie licenses under our belt."

Which is why, in December, Sega came out with its action-adventure game The Golden Compass for all major consoles a few days prior to the film's opening. And Sega intends to offer both console and handheld versions of The Incredible Hulk come June around the time of the Universal Studio's June 13 movie release. At the end of the year, too, Sega will unveil Aliens: Colonial Marines, a first-person shooter that is the first of several games based on the Alien film franchise, thanks to a deal with 20th Century Fox.

Despite the fact that the games industry has been roundly criticized for being "overlicensed," Jeffery believes it is an important component of his company's strategy.

"This is all new for Sega," says Jeffery, "but, in our transition years, one of the things we've done is take a step back and look at what has enabled our competitors -- Electronic Arts, Activision, THQ and Ubisoft -- to be successful. And movie licenses always seem to be a part of that."

Ironically, during his three-year tenure as president of LucasArts Entertainment -- from 2000-03 -- he decided that the company was relying too heavily on its Star Wars license, but he was unable to achieve his goal of creating successful original IP.

"Although Sega is now building licensed games," he explains, "we are being careful not to chase every movie license that comes along. Too often, publishers just slap the license onto the box and don't give the game enough attention to make certain the content of the movie translates over to the game. We are trying to be particularly choosey about which licenses we want and with which developers we partner."

Jeffery has also been able to convince Sega's management in Japan that games sold in the U.S. need to be built in the West while appealing to Western tastes.

"Much of the product that comes out of Japan isn't really suitable or appropriate culturally for the Western market," Jeffery notes, "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."