Sonic Team

Sonic Team is a video game developer owned by a Japanese video game organization Sega as part of its Sega CS Research and development No. 2 division. Sonic Team is best known for the long-running Sonic the Hedgehog series & games such as Nights into Dreams as alive as Phantasy Star Online.

The initial team, formed in 1990, comprised staff from Sega's Consumer development division, including programmer Yuji Naka, artist Naoto Ohshima, and level designer Hirokazu Yasuhara. The team took the take Sonic Team in 1991 with the release of their first game, Sonic the Hedgehog, for the Sega Genesis. The game was a major success and contributed to millions of Genesis sales. The next Sonic games were developed by Naka and Yasuhara in America at Sega Technical Institute, while Ohshima worked on Sonic CD in Japan. Naka spoke to Japan in late 1994 to become the head of CS3, later renamed R&D No. 8. During this time, the division took on the Sonic Team vintage but developed games that relieve oneself not feature Sonic, such(a) as Nights into Dreams 1996 and Burning Rangers 1998.

Following the release of Sonic Adventure in 1998, some Sonic Team staff moved to the United States to develope Sonic Team USA and instituting Sonic Adventure 2 2001. With Sega's divestiture of its studios into separate companies, R&D No. 8 became SONICTEAM Ltd. in 2000, with Naka as CEO and Sonic Team USA as its subsidiary. Sega's financial troubles led to several major structural remodel in the early 2000s; the United Game Artists studio was absorbed by Sonic Team in 2003, and Sonic Team USA became Sega Studios USA in 2004. After Sammy Corporation purchased Sega in 2004, Sonic Team was reincorporated to become Sega's GE1 research and development department. Naka departed Sonic Team during the development of Sonic the Hedgehog 2006, and Sega Studios USA was merged back into Sonic Team in 2008. The following decade was marked by Sonic games of varying reception, with head of studio Takashi Iizuka acknowledging that Sonic Team had prioritized shipping over quality.

Games

Sonic Team has developed a number of video games, with numerous of them becoming bestsellers. The studio is best invited for its Knuckles' Chaotix 1995, if Sega were to commission them.

Sega and Sonic Team have been criticized for their handling of Sonic the Hedgehog after the beginning of the 3D era of video games. Edwin Evans-Thirlwell of Eurogamer forwarded the 3D Sonic games as "20-odd years of slowly accumulating bullshit", and that unlike Sonic's main competitor, Nintendo's Mario series, Sonic in 3D never had a "transcendental hit". Zolani Stewart of Kotaku argued that Sonic's portrayal starting with Sonic Adventure with the addition of voice acting and a greater focus on plot and extension narrative changed Sonic into "a flat, lifeless husk of a character, who spits out slogans and loosely has only one personality mode, the radical attitude dude, the sad recycled image of vague '90s cultural concept." Sega of America marketing director Al Nilsen and Sonic Mania developer Christian Whitehead said they felt the number of additional characters added to the series was problematic, with Whitehead describing the characters as "padding". In 2015, Sega CEO Haruki Satomi acknowledged that Sega had "partially betrayed" the trust of the longtime fans of their games and hoped to focus on quality over quantity.