Sega is a video game developer, publisher, and hardware development company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, with multiple offices around the world. The company's involvement in the arcade game industry began as a Japan-based distributor of coin-operated machines, including pinball games and jukeboxes. [1] [2] [3] Sega imported second-hand machines that required frequent maintenance. This necessitated the construction of replacement guns, flippers, and other parts for the machines. According to former Sega director Akira Nagai, this is what led to the company into developing their own games. [4]
Sega released Pong-Tron , its first video-based game, in 1973. [5] The company prospered from the arcade game boom of the late 1970s, with revenues climbing to over US$100 million by 1979. [6] Nagai has stated that Hang-On and Out Run helped to pull the arcade game market out of the 1983 downturn and created new genres of video games. [4]
In terms of arcades, Sega is the world's most prolific arcade game producer, having developed more than 500 games, 70 franchises, and 20 arcade system boards since 1981. It has been recognized by Guinness World Records for this achievement. [7] The following list comprises the various arcade system boards developed and used by Sega in their arcade games.
Arcade board | Notes | Notable games and release years |
---|---|---|
Dual [8] [9] |
| |
G80 [11] [12] |
|
|
VCO Object |
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Laserdisc |
|
|
System 1 / System 2 |
|
|
Super Scaler |
| |
System E |
|
|
System 16 / System 18 |
|
|
OutRun |
| |
X Board |
|
|
System 24 |
|
|
Y Board |
| |
Mega-Tech / Mega Play |
|
|
System C | ||
System 32 |
| |
Model 1 |
|
|
Model 2 |
|
|
Sega Titan-Video (ST-V) |
|
|
Model 3 |
|
|
NAOMI |
|
|
Hikaru |
|
|
NAOMI 2 |
|
|
Triforce |
|
|
Chihiro |
| |
SystemSP |
|
|
Lindbergh |
| |
Europa-R |
| |
RingEdge / RingWide / RingEdge 2 |
|
|
Nu |
|
|
ALLS |
|
|
Sega has developed and released additional arcade games that use technology other than their dedicated arcade system boards. The first arcade game manufactured by Sega was Periscope, an electromechanical game. This was followed by Missile in 1969. [189] Subsequent video-based games such as Pong-Tron (1973), Fonz (1976), and Monaco GP (1979) used discrete logic boards without a CPU microprocessor. [190] Frogger (1981) used a system powered by two Z80 CPU microprocessors. [191] Some titles, such as Zaxxon (1982) were developed externally from Sega, a practice that was not uncommon at the time. [192]
Virtua Fighter is a fighting game developed and published by Sega for arcades. It was developed for the Sega Model 1 arcade platform by AM2, a development group within Sega headed by Yu Suzuki. An early prototype version was location tested in Japan by August 1993, before the complete game was released worldwide in December 1993. It was the first arcade fighting game to feature fully 3D polygon graphics. The game was ported to Sega Saturn as a global launch title in 1994 and 1995, and also received a port to the Sega 32X.
Initial D is a Japanese street racing manga series written and illustrated by Shuichi Shigeno. It was serialized in Kodansha's seinen manga magazine Weekly Young Magazine from 1995 to 2013, with the chapters collected into 48 tankōbon volumes. The story focuses on the world of illegal Japanese street racing, where all the action is concentrated in the mountain passes and rarely in cities or urban areas, and with the drifting racing style emphasized in particular. Professional race car driver and pioneer of drifting Keiichi Tsuchiya helped with editorial supervision. The story is centered on the prefecture of Gunma, more specifically on several mountains in the Kantō region and in their surrounding cities and towns. Although some of the names of the locations the characters race in have been fictionalized, all of the locations in the series are based on actual locations in Japan.
Death Crimson OX is a light gun shooting game developed by Ecole Software. It was released in arcades in 2000 then ported to the Dreamcast console in 2001, several months after Sega had dropped support for the console. It is the third and final game in the Death Crimson series, and the only one to be released outside Japan. The game was also released as Guncom 2 in Europe and Death Crimson OX+ in Japan on the PlayStation 2.
Sega AM Research & Development No. 3, known as Hitmaker Co., Ltd. from 2000 to 2004, is a defunct division of Sega, a Japanese video game company. Established by 1993, AM3 was managed by Hisao Oguchi and developed a number of arcade games for Sega. Series introduced by AM3 include Virtual On, Sega Rally, Crazy Taxi, and Virtua Tennis. AM3's main focus was on arcade games until the release of the Dreamcast. Additionally, developers Tetsuya Mizuguchi and Kenji Sasaki developed Sega Rally Championship with AM3 before departing to form AM Annex, which later split into Sega AM9 and Sega AM5.
Sega AM Research & Development No. 2, previously known as SEGA-AM2 Co., Ltd., is a video game development team within the Japanese multinational video game developer Sega. Yu Suzuki, who had previously developed arcade games for Sega including Hang-On and Out Run, was the first manager of the department.
OutRunners is a 1993 racing video game developed by Sega AM1 on System 32 Multi hardware. It constitutes the third release in the arcade Out Run series, after Turbo OutRun (1989), and was ported to the Sega Genesis home console in 1994.
Derby Owners Club is a horse racing arcade game developed by Sega AM3, known as Hitmaker at the time, and published by Sega. Players are put into the roles of breeder, trainer, jockey, and owner of a thoroughbred racehorse. Statistics are saved on a IC card that can be put into any machine. The first version was released in Japan in 1999 and ran on the NAOMI arcade board.
Virtua Fighter is a series of fighting games created by Sega AM2 and designer Yu Suzuki. The original Virtua Fighter was released in December 1993 and has received four main sequels and several spin-offs. The highly influential first Virtua Fighter game is widely recognized as the first 3D fighting game released.
World Club Champion Football is a Japanese collectible card game and football/soccer sports arcade video game released by Sega. The game is officially abbreviated as WCCF. It is the first arcade game to combine trading cards with a video game, establishing a new genre of arcade game. The game was mostly released in Japan and has never received a port.
A.B. Cop is a futuristic 3D racing arcade game released by Sega in 1990. It never received any official port to home consoles.
Sega AM Research & Development No. 1 is a development department within Japanese toy and amusement game company Sega Fave that also previously existed as Wow Entertainment and Sega Wow Inc. AM1 spent most of its early existence under the leadership of Rikiya Nakagawa and developed a number of arcade games for Sega.
Sangokushi Taisen is a hybrid physical and digital collectible card game for the arcade, on the Chihiro arcade board. It is a real-time strategy-based game set in the Three Kingdoms period of Chinese history and the 14th century Chinese novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong. It uses the same housing as World Club Champion Football, with a sensitive playing area that can detect the position of the physical cards. Over 500 million trading cards have been shipped. It is the sixth trading card arcade game by Sega, following World Club Champion Football, Mushiking: The King of Beetles, The Key of Avalon, Love and Berry: Dress Up and Dance! and Quest of D.
This is a list of development studios owned by Sega, a Japanese video game developer and publisher based in Tokyo, Japan. 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.
Sega Corporation is a Japanese multinational video game company and subsidiary of Sega Sammy Holdings headquartered in Shinagawa, Tokyo. It produces several multi-million-selling game franchises for arcades and consoles, including Sonic the Hedgehog, Angry Birds, Phantasy Star, Puyo Puyo, Super Monkey Ball, Total War, Virtua Fighter, Megami Tensei, Sakura Wars, Persona, and Yakuza. From 1983 until 2001, Sega also developed its own consoles.
Sega Sports Research and Development, or Sega Sports R&D, was a development division of the Japanese video game company Sega. It was previously known as Smilebit, one of nine semi-autonomous studios which Sega established in 2000. Smilebit was previously known as R&D6 or AM6 which itself was mainly based on Sega PC. Smilebit was known for its sports simulation titles, as well as Jet Set Radio. When Sega started releasing games for other platforms, Smilebit began developing games for the Xbox, with Jet Set Radio Future, Panzer Dragoon Orta and GunValkyrie. Smilebit was led by Shun Arai as president and Takayuki Kawagoe as director. Kawagoe became president of Smilebit in 2003.
Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio is a video game developer housed within the Japanese video game company Sega as part of its Sega CS Research and Development No. 1 division. It is known for developing the games in the Like a Dragon series, which the studio is named after, since Yakuza 5.
Dragon Treasure is an arcade game developed by Overworks and published by Sega in 2003 for the Sega NAOMI arcade board for Japanese arcades. The game is a coin-pusher game combined with a role-playing game, and can be played by multiple people. Progress can be stored on an IC card and can be resumed on any machine, which was new for medal games in Japan at the time. It received two sequels with Dragon Treasure II in 2004 and Dragon Treasure III in 2005.
Sega Net Mahjong MJ is a mahjong arcade game developed by Sega AM2 and released by Sega. The first version for arcades was released in July 2002 for the Sega NAOMI 2 arcade system. It featured online features with ranking, customization and recording your play history, using the experience that AM2 had developed from Virtua Fighter 4 and VF.NET. It received numerous updates and sequels since then.
Avalon no Kagi, alternatively known as The Key of Avalon is an arcade game developed by Hitmaker and published by Sega on the Triforce arcade board. It is the third card arcade game by Sega, following World Club Champion Football and Mushiking: The King of Beetles. It is a combination of sugoroku style board game and combat trading card game. It was followed by a sequel called The Key of Avalon 2: Eutaxy Commandment which was updated as The Key of Avalon 2.5: War of the Key.
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