This is a list of development studios owned by Sega, a Japanese video game developer and publisher based in Tokyo, Japan. Sega itself is a development studio of Sega Sammy Holdings, a company formed in 2004 after it merged with Sammy. Accompanied with the list is their history of game development. Also included are the companies that Sega has acquired over the years. For a full list of games developed and published by Sega, see List of Sega video games, List of Sega mobile games and List of Sega arcade games.
1960–1990 During the early 1960s, Sega had around 40 developers. One of the developers was Hisashi Suzuki, who previously was in charge of autodesign at Tokyu Kogyu Kurogane, he changed jobs to Sega in 1964, which then was called Nihon Goraku Bussan. As the company grew, Suzuki recalls about eight departments dedicated to development, which were arcades, arcade cabinets and consumer products. Sega rarely outsourced their games, much like Namco and Taito, as it was hard to find other companies that could do design, manufacturing, marketing and maintenance all at once.
Another early developer was Hideki Sato, who joined 1971. Sato has recalled that when he joined Sega, they were making pinball tables and electro-mechanical games, however still mainly sold jukeboxes. He became part of a development team that mainly had around 20 people. Sato was initially assigned to the part that made pinball tables, which were imported from America, but had modifications done to them so they would be more fun.
Sega at that time was owned by a foreign company and led by David Rosen. Rosen brought Pong from Atari to the Japanese offices, which impressed Sato. The developers quickly researched how games with TV's were made, and thus Sega quickly brought its first video game to market with Pong Tron in 1973. Hayao Nakayama, who later became president, joined Sega after the purchase of game distribution company Esco Trading. According to Sato, Nakayama was more than just a manager, he had helpful input into games like Monaco GP as well, as he firmly understood the business of games and that the development division is the most important part of a company.
Sega learned a lot about programming and software after purchasing Gremlin Industries in 1978, which was located in San Diego. It was because of this purchase that Sega began using printed circuit boards for games. Sega's first arcade board was the System 1, which debuted with Star Jacker. It was developed by Sato and was their first standardized arcade board; before then, each game had individually customized hardware. Sato remained in charge of all hardware aspects of Sega.
Home computers became an interest of Nakayama, as the MSX was becoming popular. Consequently, a small team of three people were involved in creating the SC-3000. The game capabilities of it were turned into the SG-1000, the first home console of Sega, which was made after Sega learned about Nintendo's plans to release the Famicom. At the same time the System 2 arcade hardware was developed, this time by hardware engineer Hiroshi Yagi. Yagi had first worked at Sega during the 1970s on early solid state-based pinball, but briefly left to work at Honda, before returning with the full approval of Sato. The new console Sega Mark III, called Sega Master System overseas, was made with the purpose that System 1 and 2 arcade games could easily be ported. It was thought that spreading home hardware while also developing more powerful arcade hardware would make players go to an actual arcade, and that this would create a virtuous cycle.
System 2 was also able to display multiple screens, a capability which was used in a horse racing medal game called Super Derby. This was useful for the development of the Sega Game Gear, which released in 1990. Since 1985, the Motorola 68000 was used in arcades, and it was modified to suit home consoles, which resulted in the Mega Drive in 1988, called Sega Genesis in North America when it released a year later. According to Sato this was when Sega began sharing the know-how between arcade and home hardware. Sega also increased the amount of female customers in arcades with the UFO Catcher, an improved type of crane game that existed before, and acquiring the Tetris license for arcades. In terms of software developers, Yoji Ishii joined 1978, and was involved in sound engineering on various titles like Monaco GP and Zaxxon, before being involved in the planning section working on early arcade titles like Up'n Down, Sindbad Mystery, Flicky, Teddy Boy Blues and Fantasy Zone. He also worked with Yu Suzuki on his titles later on, and then moved on to management duties. Yu Suzuki joined in 1983, and after a year of doing chores and developing Champion Boxing, he was developing big sensory cabinet games like Hang-On, Space Harrier, OutRun and After Burner. Each took about six months. According to Hisashi Suzuki, it was the environment of being able to do everything in-house that made these kind of cabinets possible.
Yuji Naka joined the company alongside Hiroshi Kawaguchi, and was part of the team that developed software for the SC-3000, the PC Division, which according to Naka had about fifteen developers. Only some games were outsourced to Compile, all the software was done in-house. Software developers were only around 50 people at most, 20 or 30 for hardware-related matters. The pace of software development was to develop one game every one to two months, Yuji Naka recalls bragging with Yu Suzuki who worked more overtime, and it was usual to work at weekends too, as they were essentially living at the company. Mark Cerny, the only foreigner in development, recalls the company was very much a sweatshop, saying "It's one programmer, one artist, three months. That's a game. The Tokyo group made about 40 games, from which about only two could be played and enjoyed". Hideki Sato said much of the same, saying that the company was lagging behind the arcade experience of the company. Rieko Kodama, developer of Phantasy Star, recalls only one development team existing divided into software, planning and art. The artists would handle packaging, advertisements and arcade cabinet design all by themselves. According to The Revenge of Shinobi developer, Noriyoshi Ohba, by the time he joined in 1987, there were already two teams: one for arcade games, and one for console games.
Naka already had a reputation as a great programmer early on. He desired to make games that were not possible on Nintendo hardware, or to port arcade games from more powerful hardware. Examples of this include the 3D Dungeons of Phantasy Star, the Mark III version of Hokuto no Ken (overseas known as Black Belt) or ports of the arcade games Space Harrier, Super Thunder Blade and the Capcom game Ghouls 'n Ghosts. However it was the development plan of making "a game to beat Mario" that caught the attention of a superior of Naka, which started the development of Sonic the Hedgehog. The Genesis generally marked a turning point were more original software for consoles began development such as Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle, The Revenge of Shinobi, Phantasy Star II and Sword of Vermillion.
Early development +DepartmentHeaded ByNotable Titles/ProductsProduction & EngineeringDavid Rosen Jet Rocket Killer Shark PeriscopePC DivisionUnknown Champion Boxing Girl's Garden SC-3000
1983–1990 DepartmentDivision Headed By Notable Titles/Products R&D1R&D, Sega Enterprises Hisashi Suzuki, Yoji Ishii R&D2Mamoru Shigeta, Minoru KanariR&D3Hideki SatoSG-1000 Sega Mark III Sega GenesisR&D4Unknown Aero City Sega Super Curcuit UFO CatcherR&D5Sega System series Super ScalerR&D6 Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse Sega AI Computer The Revenge of ShinobiR&D7 Robo PitcherR&D8Yu SuzukiR&D9Unknown Fatal Labyrinth Shadow Dancer
1991–1999
Yu Suzuki was the first to branch out, with his own studio called Studio 128. After that, many more departments followed, all of which had their roots in R&D1. Hisao Oguchi recalls up to six departments; according to him the environment was extremely competitive. Hisashi Suzuki often asked "what's new?" and had a desire of the development teams to be "first in the world" when looking at their game pitches. Hayao Nakayama had harsh opinions on the developers that didn't make money in the arcades, and thus supported developers like Yu Suzuki, who created many hits. Nakayama gave an order to develop a title better than Street Fighter II by Capcom. Namco had also paced ahead in the arcade industry with Winning Run. To catch up, Sega was motivated to move ahead in 3D graphics, and while most developers were still rooted in sprite graphics, Yu Suzuki was the only willing developer to go forward in this direction. He purchased SGI IRIS workstations from Silicon Valley to develop Virtua Racing, which in turn led to Virtua Fighter, and both satisfied Nakayama's expectations. In collaboration with GE, the Sega Model 2 and Sega Model 3 arcade hardware was made possible, and produced further games with very advanced graphics such as Daytona USA, building on newer AM2 hire Toshihiro Nagoshi's previous experience directing Virtua Racing. Multiplayer action and sports titles were also made possible with Virtua Striker, Virtua Cop and SpikeOut.
On the opposite trend, Hisao Oguchi of AM3, which broke away from AM1 following AM2's success, was aiming to make games for couples, as well as aiming for a "cool" rather than otaku-like feel. AM3 developer Mie Kumagai, who later garnered attention later on as a female manager of a development department, shared this sentiment, believing "the future of arcades cannot be boys only". Rail Chase, Jurassic Park, Jambo! Safari, Top Skater and DecAthlete, were part of this direction. However, most of the income at arcades in Japan still came from core players rather than casuals, with AM3 scoring one of its biggest hits in the form of Virtual On: Cyber Troopers. AM3 also succeeded by establishing Tetsuya Mizuguchi and Kenji Sasaki in game development at Sega on the acclaimed Sega Rally Championship; they had both previously made ride films for Sega's large AS-1 motion simulator, and broke off into their very own unit, AM Annex, following the popularity of Rally (a benefit similarly given to Nagoshi for SpikeOut). After their success with UFO Catcher prize games and Tetris, Sega's next hit in the arcade market with women ultimately came in the Print Club photo booths, co-developed by the arcade cabinet team AM4 with Atlus. This established purikura in Japan.
Sega's arcade hardware development side additionally grew, with teams splitting off from the existing AM4 department in a similar way to AM2 and AM3. These included AM5, whose personnel at first originated a line of kiddie rides with monitors, but went on to instead make large scale attractions for Sega's attempts at the theme park business with Joypolis, SegaWorld London and Sega World Sydney, led by Nakayama in another effort to compete with Namco, as well as Disney. Building off of the motion base of the AS-1 simulator, their attractions included the VR-1, an early example of Virtual Reality made with support from AM4, 3, and Virtuality. Masao Yoshimoto, who joined in 1987, and developed the R360 among many other arcade cabinets, recalled this period as the golden age of Sega, when both advanced graphics and big motion sensitive simulators such as the ones for Manx TT Superbike and WaveRunner were made possible.