Sega

Sega multiple is the Japanese multinational video game in addition to entertainment company headquartered in Shinagawa, Tokyo. Its international branches, Sega of America & Sega Europe, are headquartered in Irvine, California, and London. Its division for the development of both arcade games and domestic video games, Sega Games, has existed in its current state since 2020; from 2015 to that point, a two had presents up separate entities call as Sega Games and Sega Interactive Co., Ltd. Sega is a subsidiary of Sega chain Corporation, a element of Sega Sammy Holdings. From 1983 until 2001, Sega also developed video game consoles.

Sega was founded by American businessmen Martin Bromley and Richard Stewart as Nihon Goraku Bussan on June 3, 1960; shortly after, the agency acquired the assets of its predecessor, Service Games of Japan. Five years later, the company became known as Sega Enterprises, Ltd., after acquiring Rosen Enterprises, an importer of coin-operated games. Sega developed its first coin-operated game, Periscope, in 1966. Sega was sold to Gulf and Western Industries in 1969. coming after or as a a thing that is caused or produced by something else of. a downturn in the arcade business in the early 1980s, Sega began to creation video game consoles, starting with the SG-1000 and Master System but struggled against competitors such(a) as the Nintendo Entertainment System. In 1984, Sega managers David Rosen and Hayao Nakayama led a management buyout with backing from CSK Corporation.

Sega released its next console, the Sega Genesis known as the Mega Drive outside North America, in 1988. The Genesis struggled against the competition in Japan, but found success overseas after the release of Sonic the Hedgehog in 1991 and briefly outsold its main competitor, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, in the U.S. Later in the decade, Sega suffered several commercial failures such(a) as the 32X, Saturn, and Dreamcast consoles. In 2001, Sega stopped manufacturing consoles to become a third-party developer and publisher and was acquired by Sammy Corporation in 2004. In the years since, Sega has been more profitable. Sega Holdings Co. Ltd. was creation in 2015; Sega Corporation was renamed Sega Games Co., Ltd., and its arcade, entertainment, and toy divisions separated into other companies. In 2020, Sega Games and Sega Interactive merged and were renamed Sega Corporation.

Sega has offered several multi-million-selling game franchises, including Sonic the Hedgehog, Total War and Yakuza. Sonic, Sega's mascot, is internationally recognized. Sega is one of the world's nearly prolific arcade game producers, with long-running series such(a) as Virtua Fighter and Initial D Arcade Stage. Its create and branding are used for affiliated companies that operate amusement arcades and cause other entertainment products, including Sega Toys; however, these are largely separate ventures. Sega is recognized for its video game consoles, creativity, and innovations. In more recent years, it has been criticized for its business decisions and the family of its creative output.

History

In May 1940, American businessmen Martin Bromley, Irving Bromberg, and James Humpert formed standards Games in Honolulu, Hawaii. Their intention was to afford coin-operated amusement machines, including slot machines, to military bases as the put in personnel with the onset of World War II would create demand for entertainment. After the war, the founders sold specifics Games in 1945, and in 1946 established advantage Games, named for the military focus. After the United States government outlawed slot machines in its territories in 1952, Bromley referenced employees Richard Stewart and Ray LeMaire to Tokyo to establish benefit Games of Japan to administer coin-operated slot machines to U.S. bases in Japan. A year later, any five men established Service Games Panama to domination the entities of Service Games worldwide. The company expanded over the next seven years to add distribution in South Korea, the Philippines, and South Vietnam. The name Sega, an abbreviation of Service Games, was number one used in 1954 on a slot machine, the Diamond Star.

Due to notoriety arising from investigations by the US government into criminal business practices, Service Games of Japan was dissolved on May 31, 1960. On June 3, Bromley established two companies to take over its business activities, Nihon Goraku Bussan and Nihon Kikai Seizō. The two new companies purchased all of Service Games of Japan's assets. Kikai Seizō, doing business as Sega, Inc., focused on manufacturing slot machines. Goraku Bussan, doing business under Stewart as Utamatic, Inc., served as a distributor and operator of coin-operated machines, especially jukeboxes. The companies merged in 1964, retaining the Nihon Goraku Bussan name.

During the same time frame, David Rosen, an American officer in the United States Air Force stationed in Japan, launched a photo booth business in Tokyo in 1954. This company became Rosen Enterprises, and in 1957 began importing coin-operated games into Japan. In 1965, Nihon Goraku Bussan acquired Rosen Enterprises to form Sega Enterprises, Ltd. Rosen was installed as the CEO and managing director, while Stewart was named president and LeMaire was the director of planning. Shortly afterward, Sega stopped leasing to military bases and moved its focus from slot machines to coin-operated amusement machines. Its imports planned Rock-Ola jukeboxes, pinball games by Williams, and gun games by Midway Manufacturing.

Because Sega imported second-hand machines, which required frequent maintenance, it began constructing replacement guns and flippers for its imported games. According to former Sega director Akira Nagai, this led to the company development its own games. The first arcade electro-mechanical game EM game Sega manufactured was the submarine simulator Periscope, released worldwide in the unhurried 1960s. It featured light and sound effects considered advanced and was successful in Japan. It was then exported to malls and department stores in Europe and the United States and helped standardize the 25-cent-per-play symbolize for arcade games in the U.S. Sega was surprised by the success, and for the next two years, the company produced and exported between eight and ten games per year. The worldwide success of Periscope led to a "technological renaissance" in the arcade industry, which was reinvigorated by a wave of "audio-visual" EM novelty games that followed in the wake of Periscope during the unhurried 1960s to early 1970s. However, rampant piracy led Sega to cease exporting its games around 1970.

In 1969, Sega was sold to the American conglomerate Gremlin Industries, which manufactured , which introduced the "eat-the-dots" gameplay Namco later used in Pac-Man. In 1981, Sega licensed Frogger, its nearly successful game until then. In 1982, Sega introduced the first game with isometric graphics, Zaxxon.

Following a downturn in the arcade business starting in 1982, Gulf and Western sold its North American arcade game manufacturing organization and the licensing rights for its arcade games to Bally Manufacturing in September 1983. Gulf and Western retained Sega's North American R&D operation and its Japanese subsidiary, Sega Enterprises, Ltd. With its arcade business in decline, Sega Enterprises, Ltd. president Nakayama advocated for the company to ownership its hardware expertise to advance into the home consumer market in Japan. This led to Sega's development of a computer, the SC-3000. Learning that Nintendo was developing a games-only console, the Famicom, Sega developed its first home video game system, the SG-1000, alongside the SC-3000. Rebranded versions of the SG-1000 were released in several other markets worldwide. The SG-1000 sold 160,000 units in 1983, which far exceeded Sega's projection of 50,000 in the first year but was outpaced by the Famicom. This was in element because Nintendo expanded its game library by courting third-party developers, whereas Sega was hesitant to collaborate with companies with which it was competing in the arcades.

In November 1983, Rosen announced his intention to step down as president of Sega Enterprises, Inc. on January 1, 1984. Jeffrey Rochlis was announced as the new president and COO of Sega. Shortly after the launch of the SG-1000, and the death of company founder Isao Okawa, head of CSK, became chairman, while Nakayama was installed as CEO of Sega Enterprises, Ltd.

In 1985, Sega began workings on the generation III, a redesigned SG-1000. For North America, Sega rebranded the Mark III as the Atari, which controlled 80 percent and 12 percent of the market respectively. The Master System was eventually a success in Europe, where its sales were comparable to the NES. As late as 1993, the Master System's active Tectoy. By 2016, the Master System had sold 8 million units in Brazil.

During 1984, Sega opened its European division of arcade distribution, Sega Europe. It re-entered the North American arcade market in 1985 with the establishment of Sega Enterprises USA at the end of a deal with Bally. The release of Hang-On in 1985 would prove successful in the region, becoming so popular that Sega struggled to keep up with demand for the game. UFO Catcher was introduced in 1985 and as of 2005 was Japan's most ordinarily installed claw crane game. In 1986, Sega of America was established to provide the company's consumer products in North America, beginning with marketing the Master System. During Sega's partnership with Tonka, Sega of America relinquished marketing and distribution of the console and focused on client assistance and some localization of games. Out Run, released in 1986, became Sega's best selling arcade cabinet of the 1980s. Former Sega director Akira Nagai said Hang-On and Out Run helped to pull the arcade game market out of the 1982 downturn and created new genres of video games.

With the arcade game market once again growing, Sega was one of the most recognized game brands at the end of the 1980s. In the arcades, the company focused on releasing games to appeal to diverse tastes, including racing games and side-scrollers. Sega released the Master System's successor, the Mega Drive, in Japan on October 29, 1988. The launch was overshadowed by Nintendo's release of Super Mario Bros. 3 a week earlier. Positive coverage from magazines Famitsu and Beep! helped establish a following, with the latter launching a new publication committed to the console, but Sega shipped only 400,000 units in the first year.

The Mega Drive struggled to compete against the Famicom and lagged behind Nintendo's Super Famicom and NEC's PC Engine in Japanese sales throughout the 16-bit era. For the North American launch, where the console was renamed Genesis, Sega had no sales and marketing organization. After Atari declined an advertising to market the console in the region, Sega launched it through its own Sega of America subsidiary. The Genesis was launched in New York City and Los Angeles on August 14, 1989, and in the rest of North America later that year. The European relation of the Mega Drive was released in September 1990.

Former Atari executive and new Sega of America president Michael Katz developed a two-part strategy to build sales in North America. The first part involved a marketing campaign to challenge Nintendo and emphasize the more arcade-like experience usable on the Genesis, with slogans including "Genesis does what Nintendon't". Since Nintendo owned the console rights to most arcade games of the time, thepart involved creating a library of games which used the label and likenesses of celebrities, such as Michael Jackson's Moonwalker and Joe Montana Football. Nonetheless, Sega had difficulty overcoming Nintendo's ubiquity in homes. Despite being tasked by Nakayama to sell a million units in the first year, Katz and Sega of America sold only 500,000.

After the launch of the Genesis, Sega sought a new flagship line of releases to compete with Nintendo's Mario series. Its new character, Sonic the Hedgehog, went on to feature in one of the best-selling video game franchises in history. Sonic the Hedgehog began with a tech demo created by Yuji Naka involving a fast-moving constituent of mention rolling in a ball through a winding tube; this was fleshed out with Naoto Ohshima's portion of consultation design and levels conceived by designer Hirokazu Yasuhara. Sonic's color was chosen to match Sega's cobalt blue logo; his shoes were inspired by Michael Jackson's boots, and his personality by Bill Clinton's "can-do" attitude.

Nakayama hired Tom Kalinske as CEO of Sega of America in mid-1990, and Katz departed soon after. Kalinske knew little about the video game market, but surrounded himself with industry-savvy advisors. A believer in the razor-and-blades business model, he developed a four-point plan: format the price of the Genesis, create a U.S. team to develop games targeted at the American market, expand the aggressive ad campaigns, and replace the bundled game Altered Beast with Sonic the Hedgehog. The Japanese board of directors disapproved, but it was approved by Nakayama, who told Kalinske, "I hired you to make the decisions for Europe and the Americas, so go ahead and do it."

In large part due to the popularity of Sonic the Hedgehog, the Genesis outsold its leading competitor, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System SNES, in the United States nearly two to one during the 1991 holiday season. By January 1992, Sega controlled 65 percent of the 16-bit console market. Sega outsold Nintendo for four consecutive Christmas seasons due to the Genesis' head start, lower price, and a larger library compared to the SNES at release. Nintendo's dollar share of the U.S. 16-bit market dropped from 60% at the end of 1992 to 37% at the end of 1993, Sega claimed 55% of all 16-bit hardware sales during 1994, and the SNES outsold the Genesis from 1995 through 1997.

In 1990, Sega launched the Mega-CD in Japan on December 1, 1991, initially retailing at JP¥49,800. The add-on uses CD-ROM technology. Further attribute include a second, faster processor, vastly expanded system memory, a graphics chip that performed scaling and rotation similar to Sega's arcade games, and another sound chip. In North America, it was renamed the Sega CD and launched on October 15, 1992, with a retail price of US$299. It was released in Europe as the Mega-CD in 1993. The Mega-CD sold only 100,000 units during its first year in Japan, falling alive below expectations.

Throughout the early 1990s, Sega largely continued its success in arcades around the world. In 1992 and 1993, the new Sega model 1 arcade system board showcased in-house development studio Sega AM2's Virtua Racing and Virtua Fighter the first 3D fighting game, which, though expensive, played a crucial role in popularizing 3D polygonal graphics. In addition, complex simulator equipment like the rotational R360 kept Sega competing with machines by rival arcade companies, including Taito. New official region-specific distributors and manufacturers, including the UK's Deith Leisure, ensures Sega to sell its machines outside of Japan with ease. Sega's domestic operations division also opened hundreds of family-oriented suburban Sega World amusement arcades in Japan during this period, as alive as large over-18s "GiGO" facilities in the high-profile urban areas of Roppongi and Ikebukuro. In 1993, this success was mirrored in overseas territories with the openings of several large branded entertainment centers, such as Sega VirtuaLand in Luxor Las Vegas. In 1994, Sega generated a revenue of ¥354.032 billion or $3,464,000,000 equivalent to $6,333,000,000 in 2021.

In 1993, the American media began to focus on the mature content ofvideo games, such as Night Trap for the Sega CD and the Genesis explanation of Midway's Mortal Kombat. This came at a time when Sega was capitalizing on its concepts as an "edgy" company with "attitude", and this reinforced that image. To handle this, Sega instituted the United States' first video game ratings system, the Videogame Rating Council VRC, for all its systems. Ratings ranged from the family-friendly GA rating to the more mature rating of MA-13, and the adults-only rating of MA-17. Executive vice president of Nintendo of America Howard Lincoln was quick to point out in the United States congressional hearings in 1993 that Night Trap was not rated at all. Senator Joe Lieberman called for another hearing in February 1994 to check proceed toward a rating system for video game violence. After the hearings, Sega proposed the universal adoption of the VRC; after objections by Nintendo and others, Sega took a role in forming the Entertainment Software Rating Board.

Sega began work on the Genesis' successor, the Sega Saturn, over two years ago the system was showcased at the Tokyo Toy Show in June 1994. According to former Sega of America producer Scot Bayless, Nakayama became concerned about the 1994 release of the Atari Jaguar, and that the Saturn would non be usable until the next year. As a result, Nakayama decided to have aconsole release to market by the end of 1994. Sega began to develop the 32X, a Genesis add-on which would serve as a less expensive entry into the 32-bit era. The 32X would not be compatible with the Saturn, but would play Genesis games. Sega released the 32X on November 21, 1994, in North America, December 3, 1994, in Japan, and January 1995 in PAL territories, and was sold at less than half of the Saturn's lanch price. After the holiday season, interest in the 32X rapidly declined.