In 2000, Sega reorganized its studios into semi-autonomous companies, and AM3 became Hitmaker. The company expanded its development into Dreamcast games and ports, but saw a reduced amount of success in compared to previous years. However Derby Owners Club, World Club Champion Football and The Key of Avalon, proved to be highly successful in the Japanese arcade scene. All of which were made by Hitmaker and used magnetic cards.
Hitmaker was one of the few profitable studios for Sega, which gave Oguchi the opportunity to expand beyond videogames and invest into the darts business. Owing to his work on medal and card related arcade games, Oguchi was promoted within Sega.
Oguchi departed Hitmaker in 2003 to become president of Sega. As part of Oguchi's studio consolidation plan with Sega, Sasaki's Sega Rosso studio was merged into Hitmaker. The next year, Hitmaker was integrated back into Sega. The AM3 designation would continue until 2009 until it was merged into other departments.
Hisao Oguchi joined Sega in 1984, when there was only one research and development division for arcade and video games. As part of his earliest work, he worked on project planning for the Master System, and his first game developed was Doki Doki Penguin. He directed Super Derby, Super Monaco GP, Rad Mobile, and Heavyweight Champ. Oguchi worked with Sega AM1 before going to AM3.[1] He was appointed as manager of AM3 one month after it opened.[2]
AM3 opened by April 1993.[2] By May 1993, a new Sonic the Hedgehog arcade project was in development.[3]SegaSonic the Hedgehog was developed by AM3,[4] with assistance from Sonic Team.[5] Over the next four years, AM3 continued to develop new games, such as Sega Rally Championship, Gunblade NY, Manx TT Super Bike, Virtual On: Cyber Troopers, Last Bronx, and Top Skater.[1] In 1995, Sega Rally was described by Next Generation as being potentially superior to the well reviewed Daytona USA. The same magazine described AM3 as a "fledgling" studio, being Sega's newest arcade development department at the time. Director Kenji Sasaki declared that AM3 "wanted to make a racing game that was very different to all the others out there", while producer Tetsuya Mizuguchi highlighted the game's realistic motion cabinet.[6] Mizuguchi and Sasaki later departed AM3 with the team of Sega Rally Championship[7] to develop Sega Touring Car Championship with their new group, AM Annex.[8]
In a 1997 interview, Oguchi stated that the culture at AM3 was that he would not reject or interfere with ideas, although he would make suggestions. He likened the environment to a university laboratory and called it "the AM3 way". Oguchi also addressed AM3's lack of a genre of game in which they specialized, stating that his department's primary objective was to create games that "look interesting", which also meant a focus on arcade games that one would not find on a video game console. AM3 had a fondness for using the Model 2arcade system board, which was used on Last Bronx and Top Skater even though the former released just a few weeks before AM2's Virtua Fighter 3 on the Model 3.[1]Top Skater was released afterward with a deliberate selection of the Model 2.[9] Of the newer hardware, Oguchi stated that AM3 would work with it, and that he anticipated it would eventually reduce in cost much as the Model 2 had already. Next Generation praised Last Bronx though comparing it to Virtua Fighter 3, stating it showed how AM3 had a "refusal to take a back seat to AM2 or any other R&D department".[1]
In 1999, AM3 released Top Skater developer Kenji Kanno's Crazy Taxi for the NAOMI system board.[10] It quickly became a staple game at a number of arcades and received a Dreamcast port, with more than one million copies sold. Another arcade and home release, Virtua Tennis, helped to start a new wave of tennis video games and became one of the Dreamcast's best sellers.[11]Derby Owners Club proved to be highly influential as an arcade game with physical card features.[12]
A World Club Champion Football set of cabinets
Sega restructured its arcade and console development teams into nine semi-autonomous studios headed by the company's top designers in 2000.[13][14] Oguchi chose to name his new company Hitmaker, as "the perfect translation of our image". He expressed a desire to move forward with network gaming and work on new concepts with his staff of 128 employees.[7] The company's official name was Hitmaker Co., Ltd.[15] Into 2001, Hitmaker continued to release arcade and Dreamcast games, including Cyber Troopers Virtual-On Force, Confidential Mission, and Segagaga. Even with these positive releases, Hitmaker was not reaching the level of success they had before.[11] Although in the arcade market Hitmaker built upon the success of Derby Owners Club, with World Club Champion Football and The Key of Avalon which also used physical card features.[16] In 2006, Japanese arcades made record profits based on these type of arcade games.[17]World Club Champion Football has sold 850 million player cards, as of 2016, making it the bestselling arcade digital collectible card game.[18] Sega was considered to be a pioneer of card related video games, which have become very prevalent in mobile games in Japan.[19]
Oguchi was promoted in 2003 alongside Yuji Naka and Toshihiro Nagoshi, based on the success of arcade games that used cards.[20] Due to Hitmaker being one of the few profitable studio of Sega, Oguchi had the freedom to pursue businesses outside of video games, and invested into the darts business. Hitmaker was involved in the establishment of DARTSLIVE Co., Ltd. which produces electronic darts machines, and a darts bar called Bee was opened in Shibuya in 2002.[21]
In 2003, Oguchi was promoted to president of Sega when Hideki Sato stepped down. At the time, Sega had recently announced its first profit in five years.[22]Virtua Tennis producer Mie Kumagai replaced Oguchi as president of Hitmaker, becoming Sega's first female studio head.[23] Oguchi announced his intention to consolidate Sega's studios into "four or five core operations".[22] As part of the consolidation, Hitmaker absorbed Sega Rosso, which worked on the Sega Rally and Initial D Arcade Stage series.[24] Then, in 2004, Sega reintegrated all of its studios into the company, with Hitmaker shutting down its website on July 1.[15][25] The AM3 designation continued within Sega until April 2009, when the studio was integrated into other departments.[26] According to IGN's Travis Fahs, AM3 was one of Sega's top arcade studios but received little recognition in comparison to AM2.[11] Rob Fahey of Gamesindustry.biz stated that Hitmaker had a strong reputation with consumers and within the industry.[25]
Sega Rosso
Sega Rosso Ltd.
Native name
株式会社セガ・ロッソ
Formerly
AM Annex (1996–1998) AM12 (1998–1999) Sega AM5 (1999–2000)
Sega Rosso[lower-alpha 3], previously Sega AM5, was a video game development studio headed by Kenji Sasaki, who had served as a designer on Sega Rally Championship. In 1996, producer Tetsuya Mizuguchi met with Hisashi Suzuki, the manager of the R&D division. He and Mizuguchi agreed to create a new department separate from AM3 that would be called AM Annex. Mizuguchi selected the initial team himself, a team of six or seven people that would later grow in number. The first game AM Annex began to develop was Sega Touring Car Championship on the Model 2 arcade board.[8][7] AM Annex later received the AM8 designation and developed Sega Rally 2 and Star Wars Trilogy Arcade on Sega's Model 3 board.[27]
According to Hisao Oguchi, Mizuguchi and Sasaki had departed AM3 with the team of Sega Rally Championship.[7] AM Annex was rebranded as AM12 by September 1998,[28] and AM5 in 1999.[29] The AM5 designation was previously used for a team that designed large attractions for Sega's arcades and indoor amusement parks.[30] Mizuguchi later chose to leave Sasaki after being granted his own department as CS4, later AM9, and even later United Game Artists.[7][31] Sasaki became head of AM5, while the AM8 designation went to Sonic Team.[7][32][33] As the smallest AM department with a staff between 40 and 50 employees, most of Sasaki's staff came from Namco, where Sasaki himself had a role in the development of the Ridge Racer series.[7] AM5 developed Star Wars: Racer Arcade and released it by July 2000.[34]
When the studios were separated from Sega, Sasaki chose the name "Sega Rosso" to have a "hotter" image than the "cool" blue color of Sega, and he liked the combination of Sega with the Italian word for red. Sega Rosso's next games were NASCAR Arcade and Cosmic Smash. Sasaki expressed a desire to work on both arcade and Dreamcast games, as the arcade industry was struggling.[7] Sega Rosso would also work on the Initial D Arcade Stage series before being merged with Hitmaker in 2003.[24]
United Game Artists (UGA) was a subsidiary of Sega headquartered in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan. It was founded by Tetsuya Mizuguchi, a video game developer who had experience with Sega's AM3 division. After separating with Kenji Sasaki to form AM Annex, Mizuguchi left Sasaki's team to form another division. This studio would later be known as Sega Consumer Development 4 (CS4) and Research and Development #9 while a department of Sega, before becoming UGA as a wholly owned subsidiary of Sega.
Sega Rally Championship is a 1994 racing game developed and published by Sega. Originally released for arcades using the Sega Model 2 board, ports were published for the Sega Saturn in 1995 and Microsoft Windows in 1997. The Sega Rally Championship simulates driving on different surfaces, with different friction properties, with the car's handling changing accordingly. As the first racing game to incorporate this feature, Sega Rally Championship is considered to be one of the milestones in the evolution of the racing game genre. It was also an early rally racing game and featured cooperative gameplay alongside the usual competitive multiplayer.
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.
Sega Rally is a series of 3D racing video games published by Sega. The first game in the series, Sega Rally Championship, was developed by Sega AM3 and released in arcades in 1994. Later games were developed by Sega and Sega Racing Studio.
Sega Rally 2 is an arcade racing game developed by Sega for the Model 3 arcade hardware. It is the sequel to 1994's Sega Rally Championship. The game was first released in arcades in February 1998, and was later ported to the Sega Dreamcast, becoming one of the console's earliest titles when it was released in Japan on January 28, 1999. The Sega Dreamcast version was released in Europe as a launch title on October 14, 1999, and then in North America on November 27. A PC version was released in Japan and Europe that same year, with the North American release following suit in September 2000, where it was published by Mattel Interactive.
Rad Mobile is a racing arcade game developed by Sega AM3 and published by Sega. It was first published in Japan in October 1990, followed by an international release for arcades in February 1991. Rad Mobile was Sega's first 32-bit game, using Sega's System 32 arcade system board. It was also the first ever appearance of Sonic the Hedgehog, who appears as an ornament hanging from the driver's rearview mirror.
Sega Touring Car Championship is an arcade racing game released by Sega's AM Annex for the Model 2 mainboard in 1996. It was later ported to the Sega Saturn and Microsoft Windows.
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.
Segagaga is a 2001 role-playing simulation video game developed by Hitmaker and published by Sega for the Dreamcast in Japan. Described as a "Sega simulation", the player takes control of Sega Tarō, who must help save a struggling Sega from losing to its rival DOGMA, who owns 97% of the console market. Gameplay involves battling employees and other characters throughout various Sega development studios, some being taken from older Sega game franchises. It features many tongue-in-cheek references to Sega and the video game industry, particularly Sony Computer Entertainment and its PlayStation 2 console.
Mie Kumagai is a Japanese video game producer. She began working at Sega in 1993 as an amusement park attraction planner and transferred to the arcade division of its AM3 studio two years later. When this studio's boss, Hisao Oguchi, was promoted to president of the whole company in 2003, Kumagai became the new AM3 head and the first ever female president within Sega's development structure or any Japanese development studio. She produced a number of arcade titles before helming Sega's successful Virtua Tennis series for arcades and home consoles. As of 2015, Kumagai is an executive producer at the mobile game company Colopl.
Hisao Oguchi is a Japanese business executive. He was director, vice chairman, and chief creative officer of Sega Sammy Holdings Inc. Oguchi originally was President and CEO of Sega. He was president and CEO of Sega Sammy Creation. He is currently a director of UDream, a content production company.
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, and Yakuza. From 1983 until 2001, Sega also developed its own consoles.
Virtua Tennis is a series of tennis simulation video games started in 1999 by Sega AM3. The player competes through tennis tournaments and various arcade modes. While originally released for arcades, all games in the series have been ported to other platforms, including most major 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.
Rail Chase 2 is a rail shooter video game developed and published by Sega for the arcades in 1994, and the sequel to Rail Chase.
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.
↑ Parish, Jeremy (September 3, 2009). "9.9.99, A Dreamcast Memorial". 1UP.com. Archived from the original on February 1, 2014. Retrieved December 10, 2016.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
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