I stumbled upon an old issue of EDGE visiting Sega circa 2003, and it was really interresting. You can see the cusp of current Sega forming, while leaving their Dreamcast era energy sort of behind. The article starts with admitting that Sega released various bombs like Panzer Dragoon Orta, Jet Set Radio Future, Shenmue 1&2, Space Channel 5 etc. and then goes on about talking about new president Hisao Oguchi, and new general managers Toshihiro Nagoshi, Yuji Naka and Yu Suzuki as well as talking with future Sega West/Japan president Naoya Tsurumi (who later also made the decision to purchase Atlus).  
  
There is alot of admiration of EA, strangely enough, and talk about appealing to the US market as well as to be more mass market, goals that Sega of Japan never really reaches. Oguchi even admitted that they appealed too much to Japan in the late 90s and early 2000s. But in all opposite, Sega went on to focus on Japan more than ever in the 2000s, well into the 2010s.  
Meanwhile talk with Sega Europe, really sets up the path that Sega would go on to. Talk about getting licenses that people don't usually associate with Sega (Warhammer, Worms), which sets up buying Creative Assembly and Sports Interactive. All while making sure Sonic and Super Monkey Ball remain a core part of their portfolio, and the admiration of EA does make sense there, if you consider how they treated Sonic the following years, with yearly releases, much to the detriment of the franchises quality.  
  
Also some talk of Nagoshi preceeding the approach of making Yakuza and his development teams: "In today's Sega games, after you play the games, users have a good feedback," reassures Nagoshi-san. "They have a good feeling about originality and a game's balance, This is particularty true for Smilebit and AV. The problem I face is not what kind of game I want to make, but how to push people to buy these games."

Coverage of Sega by EDGE in 2003