Sega development studios
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.
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 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
1983–1990
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 a variety of sports games such as Virtua Tennis, 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. 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.
Putting to use what Naka learned by porting Ghouls 'n Ghosts to the Genesis, he went on to develop Sonic the Hedgehog, along with artist Naoto Ohshima and designer Hirokazu Yasuhara. Sonic had a much bigger development period than other Sega games at the time, with Mark Cerny recalling it having ten months development time, and three core developers instead of two. Naka himself worked on it for one year and a half, and did not work on any other games in the meantime, in contrast to the frequent releases he had before. Sega of America marketing strategies made Sonic the Hedgehog a success for Sega, causing them to have 61% market share in North America with their Genesis consoles. Naka quit Sega due to him feeling that he did not get enough appreciation for his work on Sonic, but then was invited by Mark Cerny to join his development group, the Sega Technical Institute, and he along with ten other developers went to Sega of America and developed the sequels Sonic 2, Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles. In addition to STI, Sega Interactive, Sega Midwest Studio and Sega Multimedia Studio were other studios that Sega of America established at this time, though their game development never progressed to the same capacity as Japan.
As part of a concerted effort by Hayao Nakayama to supply the Mega Drive with more quality software funded by Sega, Japanese game development also expanded externally with second party studios such as SIMS, which was previously Sanritsu, Treasure, which consisted of ex-Konami developers and debuted with the highly praised Gunstar Heroes, and Sonic Software Planning!, which often worked with Climax Entertainment. Other worldwide successes developed by the inhouse Japanese development group were Streets of Rage II and Phantasy Star IV which were appreciated in all parts of the world.
The Mega CD was developed to get ahead in Japan, as the PC Engine was more popular and also had a CD drive. According to hardware developer Masami Ishikawa, Sega was able to increase performance and storage capacity, and thus became able to release better RPGs on it. The most famous title for the Mega CD was Sonic CD, developed in Japan without the involvement of Yuji Naka, although ideas were exchanged. CD was mainly developed by Naoto Ohshima, alongside staff gathered from all over Sega, many of them young. RPGs remained the most popular on consoles in Japan, and Game Arts' works were an important asset for Sega; however, those games as well as Sega's own Shining and Phantasy Star series were unable to truly compete with Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy and Ys I&II. This later led to their use of Virtua Fighter to create an RPG, since it was Sega's most popular IP in Japan, with the project eventually becoming Shenmue.
Being behind on console in Japan motivated Sega to put resources into the Sega Saturn. The development team of the Saturn was the same that developed the System 32 arcade board. Sato regrets that he did not go with the Model 1 arcade hardware as a base, as he was too concerned of leaving all the developers behind that were focused on sprites rather than 3D, which were still the majority of developers outside of AM2. At one time Sega were supporting five different console hardwares, with the first and second CS departments focusing on Sega Saturn, the third and fourth on the Mega Drive as well as 32X and Mega CD. A fifth development department existed for Game Gear development and a sixth department existed for RPG's. Another department of about 40 people dedicated to porting games to PC was also established, as Windows 95 became widespread in Japan. Including overseas staff and arcade developers, over 1000 developers were engaged in development at Sega.
Sega Saturn projects were much larger in comparison to other teams at the time, scaling up from the five or ten people involved in Master System or Genesis games. An early large project was Panzer Dragoon, for which 30 people were involved. Yoji Ishii was transferred from arcade to console development by Nakayama in 1993, and many others from the arcades followed, making it up to several hundred developers involved in Sega Saturn software development. AM2 created a development environment for the Saturn, called the Sega Graphic Library, due to the console being difficult to make games for out of the box. Early on, the 3D capabilities were not shown off well with a lacking port of Daytona USA as well as Clockwork Knight, which was mainly 2D. By 1995, the Saturn could compete very well with PlayStation in Japan with ports of Virtua Fighter 2, Virtua Cop and Sega Rally Championship. Particularly Virtua Fighter 2 became the first million-seller for Sega in Japan. RPG's like Sakura Wars, Magic Knight Rayearth and Dragon Force, anime license games such as Neon Genesis Evangelion and sports games also did very well in Japan. Yuji Naka returned to Japan and wanted to develop 3D games, after being sent videotapes of the games that Yu Suzuki was developing. Naka had no desire to develop for the Sega 32X, which was mainly spearheaded by Sega of America.
Game producer Takayuki Kawagoe called the line-up for the 32X quite weak, as games like Knuckles Chaotix were previously just 16-bit titles, but praised the original titles such as Metal Head. Naka, along with Naoto Ohshima developed NiGHTS Into Dreams and Burning Rangers, with the latter not having as much involvement from Naka. Much like how Sonic was made to succeed in America, NiGHTS was made to succeed in Europe, although that was the desire by the development team, rather than marketing. According to manager Hisashi Suzuki, the turning point was the release of Final Fantasy VII. It and the influence of Dragon Quest was far too great for Sega to overcome. It did not only influence the fortune of Sega in console development, but also the relevancy of arcades was put into question as well, with Fighters Megamix only being made for Saturn against a tight Christmas 1996 deadline to capitalize on a delay in its development. To combat Final Fantasy VII, Team Andromeda, the team behind Panzer Dragoon was instructed to develop an RPG, which was Panzer Dragoon Saga.
At the time, Sega was involved with Vivendi and Universal on GameWorks, and thus had a connection to Steven Spielberg, who visited the Sega offices and saw the prototype of Shenmue, which was something that he was very impressed with. This caused Sega management to further support it. However, according to Hisashi Suzuki this meant Yu Suzuki leaving the arcade business to develop console projects, and no one was able to tame Yu Suzuki, which meant that the project went out of control. Shenmue went over budget and was rumored to have cost Sega over $50 million.Isao Okawa, the chairman of CSK, which was the parent company of Sega, said "let's try one more time", in regard to Sega hardware. Sonic Adventure, Virtua Fighter 3, an early version of Skies of Arcadia and Shenmue moved from Saturn to the new Dreamcast and in-house development for Sega Saturn completely halted in 1998. The NAOMI arcade hardware was developed to make porting titles to the Dreamcast without loss of quality. Therefore, home and arcade hardware became equal. Isao Okawa personally instructed Yuji Naka, to create an online game for the new Dreamcast. Experiments with online functionality goes back to the Mega Modem of the Genesis. Naka released Chu Chu Rocket'' as a test for the online capabilities for the Dreamcast. The turnover of staff was the largest at Sega since 1986, as staff began to establish new companies such as Artoon. Visual Concepts was acquired by Sega of America to develop sports titles, while No Cliche was established by Sega Europe.