Sega development studios

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

Company type	Subsidiary
Industry	Video games
Key people	Hisao Oguchi, Hisashi Suzuki, Hideki Sato, Toshihiro Nagoshi, Yuji Naka, Yu Suzuki
Parent	Sega Sammy
Website	www.sega.com www.sega.jp

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.^[1]

 

A new building for development was established in 1985.^[2]

Another early developer was Hideki Sato, who joined 1971. He recalls, when he joined Sega, they were making pinball tables, electro-mechanical games, however mainly sold jukeboxes. Hideki Sato was part of a development team that mainly had around 20 people, and they were engaged in pinball tables and electro-mechanical games. Sato was assigned to the team that made pinball tables, which were imported from America, but had modifications done to them so they would be more fun.

 

The UFO Catcher became synonymous with the claw crane game in Japan

Sega at that time was owned by a foreign company and led by David Rosen. He 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.^[3] 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 costumized hardware.^[4] Home computers was an interest of Nakayama, the MSX was becoming popular.^[4] So 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 an engineer called Hiroshi Yagi. The new console Sega Mark III, overseas called Sega Master System, 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 virtous cycle.^[4] System 2 was also capable of displaying multiple screens 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.^[5] 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. According to Sato this was when Sega began sharing the know-how between arcade and home hardware.^[3] 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.^[6]

 

OutRun sit down cabinet

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.^[7][8] 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.^[9] According to Hisashi Suzuki, it was the environment of being able to do everything in-house that made these kind of cabinets possible.^[1]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.^[10] 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".^[11] Yuji Naka already had a reputation as a great programmer early on.^[12] Naka had a desire 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 "a game to beat Mario" that caught the attention of a superior of Naka, which started the development of Sonic the Hedgehog.^[10] 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.^[13]

Early development

Department	Headed By	Notable Titles/Products	Ref(s)
Production & Engineering	David Rosen	Jet Rocket Killer Shark Periscope	^[14]
PC Division	Unknown	Champion Boxing Girl's Garden SC-3000

1983–1990

Department	Division	Headed By	Notable Titles/Products	Ref(s)
DD (Development Division) 1	R&D, Sega Enterprises	Hisashi Suzuki, Yoji Ishii	Altered Beast Fantasy Zone Golden Axe	^[15]^[16]^[17]^[18]^[19]
DD2		Mamoru Shigeta, Minoru Kanari	Alex Kidd series Dragon Crystal Phantasy Star series	^[20]^[21]^[22]^[23]^[24]^[25]^[26]^[27] ^[28]
DD3		Hideki Sato	SG-1000 Sega Mark III Sega Genesis
DD4		Unknown	Aero City Sega Super Curcuit UFO Catcher
DD5			Sega System series Super Scaler
DD6		Unknown	Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse Sega AI Computer The Revenge of Shinobi
DD7		Unknown	Robo Pitcher
Studio 128		Yu Suzuki	Hang-On Space Harrier Out Run	^[29]
DD9		Unknown	Fatal Labyrinth Shadow Dancer	^[30]^[31]

1991–1999

 

Yu Suzuki and Mark Cerny have both previously worked at Sega

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. 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.^[32] Nakayama gave an order to develop a title better than Street Fighter II by Capcom. Namco was also ahead in the arcade industry with Winning Run. To catch up, Yu Suzuki purchased SGI IRIS workstations from Silicon Valley to develop Virtua Racing, which lead to Virtua Fighter, which 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 and also multiplayer titles were made possible with Virtua Striker and SpikeOut. At the time, Sega was involved with Vivendi and Universal on Gameworks arcades, 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 meants that the project went out of control.^[33] Shenmue, which was previously Virtua Fighter RPG,^[34] started development on the Sega Saturn. AM2 developed a development environment for the Sega Saturn, called the Sega Graphic Library, due to the Sega Saturn being difficult to make games for.^[35]

 

8 player Virtua Racing set-up

On the opposite trend, Hisao Oguchi of AM3 was aiming to make games for couples and as another theme to release game that were "cool" rather than otaku like. AM3 developer Mie Kumagai who later garnered attention later on as a female manager of a development department shared this sentiment as "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 came from core players rather than casuals.^[32][36][37] AM5 was established which at first made kiddie rides with monitors, which were successful but went on to make large scale attractions, one of which was the VR-1, an early example of Virtual Reality.^[38]

Masao Yoshimoto, who joined in 1987, and developed the R-360 among many other arcade cabinets, recalled this period as the golden age of Sega, when both advanced graphics and big motion sensitive cabinets such as the ones for Manx TT Superbike and WaveRunner were made possible.^[39]

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 Oshima 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.^[40][11] Yuji 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.^[10] 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. Yuji 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.^[41][42][43] Japanese game development also expanded externally with SIMS, which was previously Sanritsu, and Sonic Software Planning! which often worked with Climax Entertainment.^[12] Other worldwide successes developed by the Japanese group were Streets of Rage II and Phantasy Star IV which were appreciated in all parts of the world.^[12]

 

The new headquarters was completed in 1994.^[2]

The Sega 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, and thus was able to release a nice RPG on it.^[44] The most famous title for the Sega CD, was Sonic CD, which was developed in Japan without the involvement of Yuji Naka, although ideas were exchanged. It was mainly developed by Naoto Oshima along with much staff that was gathered from all over Sega, many of them young.^[45] RPG's were the most popular in Japan, and the RPG's from Game Arts were an important asset for Sega, but those games as well as Sega's own Shining and Phantasy Star series were unable to compete with Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy and Ys I&II.^[13] This is why Sega thought of using the Virtua Fighter IP to create an RPG, since it was Sega's most popular IP in Japan, however it eventually evolved to become Shenmue.^[34]

Being behind in Japan, motivated Sega to put a lot of resources into the Sega Saturn. The development team of the Saturn was the same that developed by System 32 arcade board.^[4] 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 the majority of developers.^[46] Sega supported five different console hardware, with the first and second department focusing on Sega Saturn, the third and fourth on the Genesis as well as add-ons 32X and Sega CD, a fifth development department existed for Game Gear development and a sixth department existed for RPG's. Also a department of about 40 people dedicated to porting games to PC was established, as Windows 95 became widespread in Japan.^[47] Including overseas staff and arcade developers, over a 1000 developers were engaged in development.

 

Japanese copies of Sega Saturn games

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 as about 30 people were involved. Yoji Ishii was transferred from the arcade to console development in 1993,^[7] and many others from the arcades followed, making it up to several hundred developers involved in Sega Saturn development.^[48] Early on, the 3D capabilities were not shown off well with a lacking port of Daytona USA as well Clockwork Knights, 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.^[13] Yuji Naka also gone back 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.^[10] 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.^[49] Yuji Naka, along with Naoto Oshima developed NiGHTS Into Dreams and Burning Rangers, with the latter not having much involvement from Naka.^[45] 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.^[40] 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.^[1] To combat Final Fantasy VII, Team Andromeda, the team behind Panzer Dragoon was instructed to develop an RPG, which was Panzer Dragoon Saga.^[50]

 

Sega Genesis with all add-ons attached

Isao Okawa, the chairman of CSK, which was the parent company of Sega, said "let's try one more time",^[34] in regard to Sega hardware. Sonic Adventure, Virtua Fighter 3, an early version of Skies of Arcadia^[51] 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.^[13] Isao Okawa personally instructed Yuji Naka, to create an online game for the new Dreamcast. 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.^[48][52] Visual Concepts was acquired by Sega of America to develop sports titles, while No Cliche was established by Sega Europe.^[53][54]

1991–1995

Department	Division	Members From	Headed By	Notable Titles/Products	Ref(s)
AM1	Amusement R&D, Sega Enterprises	Sega R&D1	Rikiya Nakagawa	Golden Axe: The Revenge of Death Adder OutRunners Puzzle & Action: Ichidant-R	^[55]^[56]^[57]
AM2		Studio 128	Yu Suzuki	Virtua Cop series Virtua Fighter series Daytona USA	^[58]^[56]^[59]
AM3		Sega R&D1	Hisao Oguchi	Manx TT Superbike Sega Rally Championship SegaSonic The Hedgehog	^[60]^[56]
AM4		Sega R&D4, R&D5	Masao Yoshimoto	Astro City Print Club series UFO Catcher series
AM5			Tokinori Kaneyasu	AS-1 VR-1 Rail Chase: The Ride
AM6			Tomoji Miyamoto	Medal games
CS1 (includes Team Andromeda)	Consumer R&D, Sega Enterprises	Sega R&D2, Sega R&D6	Makoto Oshitani, Yoji Ishii	Clockwork Knight series Panzer Dragoon Golden Axe series	^[61]
CS2			Hiroshi Aso, Makoto Oshitani	Astal Dark Wizard Quackshot
CS3				Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master Streets of Rage series Sonic the Hedgehog series
CS4			Koichi Nagata	Metal Head Virtua Racing Virtua Fighter
CS5			Motoshige Hokoyama	Coca Cola Kid Sylvan Tale Sonic Drift 2
RPG Production			Tomio Takami	Blue Seed Magic Knight Rayearth Phantasy Star series

1996–1999

Department	Division	Members From	Headed By	Notable Titles/Products	Ref(s)
AM1	Amusement R&D, Sega Enterprises	Same	Rikiya Nakagawa	Harley Davidson & L.A. Riders Sega Bass Fishing The House of the Dead series	^[55]
AM2			Yu Suzuki	Fighters Megamix Virtua Fighter 3 Scud Race
AM3			Hisao Oguchi	Decathlete Virtual On series The Lost World: Jurassic Park	^[60]
AM4			Masao Yoshimoto	Blast City Print Club series UFO Catcher series
AM5			Tokinori Kaneyasu	Boat Race GP Halfpipe Canyon Sega Rally Special Stage
AM6			Tomoji Miyamoto	Medal games
AM11		Sega AM2	Toshihiro Nagoshi	SpikeOut
AM Annex/ AM12		Sega AM3	Tetsuya Mizuguchi	Sega Rally 2 Sega Touring Car Championship Star Wars Trilogy Arcade
CS1/AM6 (includes Team Andromeda)	Consumer R&D, Sega Enterprises	Sega CS1 + Sega CS2 + Sega CS3 + Sega CS4 + Sega CS5 + RPG Production	Noriyoshi Oba	Pro Soccer Club o Tsukurou! series Panzer Dragoon series Sega Worldwide Soccer series	^[62]^[56]
CS2/AM7			Noriyoshi Oba	Atsumare! Guru Guru Onsen Dragon Force series Sakura Wars series	^[62]^[56]
CS3/AM8 (includes Sonic Team)			Yuji Naka	Burning Rangers Nights into Dreams... Sonic Adventure	^[62]^[56]
CS4/AM9			Tetsuya Mizuguchi	Space Channel 5
Sega PC		New	Hiroyuki Okata	Sonic & Knuckles Collection Daytona USA: Evolution Virtua Fighter PC
Sega Digital Studio/AM10		New	Yukifimi Makino	Music for Sega games
AM1 (US Team)	Sega of America	Sega AM1	Roger Hector, Makoto Uchida	Die Hard Arcade Dynamite Cop	^[63]

2000–2004

 

Jet Set Radio on the Dreamcast was one of the innovative titles earning praise at the time

Sega officially announced their withdrawal from the console hardware market on January 31, 2001, to develop games for other hardware.^[3] In addition, the development team was split off into separate companies in April 21 of 2000, which were about ten different ones. Each headed by their own president, with their own philosophies and they were responsible for their own finances. All the different companies also supported different consoles after ending support for the Dreamcast, with the Xbox being supported by WOW Entertainment, Hitmaker and Smilebit, the Gamecube being supported by Sonic Team and Amusement Vision and the PlayStation 2 being supported by Overworks, AM2, United Game Artists and Smilebit.^[64] Tetsuya Mizuguchi, head of United Game Artist, saw this initially as a move of Sega of being more similar to Hollywood, where distribution and development were becoming more and more separated.^[65] Toshihiro Nagoshi recalls this period as labour of love from Sega, "teaching the creatives the way of managing a business".^[66] Hisao Oguchi who lead the Hitmaker studio had a suspicion that this structure was made to separate the creators who were able to make profit and the ones who didn't, as they were many projects that didn't hit the mark, and at one point Sega was hiring hundreds of developers a year, effecting costs that were no longer manageable.^[32] However journalists praised the innovation of Sega's titles during this period as a "brief moment of remarkable creativity''.^[67]

 

Arcade machines that dispense cards ended up being very successful for Sega

In the end, Yuji Naka, who lead Sonic Team, was considered to be the most successful in home software development, with Oguchi, who lead Hitmaker, being the arcade counterpart. Sonic Team produced the high selling Sonic games and Phantasy Star Online, which won several awards within the Japanese game industry. Hitmaker was attributed the successful card arcade games in Japan that Sega was developing at the time, which started with Derby Owners Club and continued with World Club Champion Football, Mushiking: The King of Beetles and Love & Berry: Dress up and Dance!. Particularly Mushiking and Love & Berry supported Sega with very strong sales in the Japanese market, although Hitmaker was not involved with those titles. Amusement Vision, led by Toshihiro Nagoshi, was not very involved with Dreamcast games, however landed a hit with Super Monkey Ball on the Nintendo Gamecube and was involved with Nintendo management when dealing with them for the development of F-Zero GX. Nagoshi observed Nintendo management from the bottom all the way to the top,and was very surprised with how uniform the opinions at the company were, saying "no wonder we lost!".^[68] This activity also made him very favourable for a management position within Sega. However, Nagoshi saw himself as sort of an in-between of Oguchi and Naka, and not on the same level as them.^[69] Sega did not make anymore custom hardware on its own after the Sega Hikaru arcade board in 2001,^[4] however many tenured engineers continued to work on Sega arcade technologies such as card systems, internet infrastructure and future arcade boards such as the Xbox-based Chihiro.^[70][71][5] Many hardware developers also joined pachinko and pachislot company Sammy Corporation, who soon merged with Sega. Hideki Sato pushed for leftover Dreamcast parts being used as displays in the machines that Sammy develops, including the very successful Fist of the North Star pachinko machines.^[72]

In 2003, Oguchi became president of Sega,^[73] and multiple studios were merged into another,^[74][75] as several developers left Sega during the era of spunning off their development studios. Including Nakagawa from WOW Entertainment^[76] and Mizuguchi. Yu Suzuki formed his own studio, Digital Rex, but within Sega.^[77] The development studios merged back into Sega on July 1 of 2004.^[78] Visual Concepts was sold to Take Two Interactive in 2005.^[53]

2000–2002

Studio	Division	Members From	Headed By	Notable Titles	Ref(s)
WOW Entertainment Inc.	R&D Holdings, Sega Corporation	Sega AM1 R&D	Rikiya Nakagawa	Sega GT series Sports Jam The House of the Dead III	^[79]
Sega AM2 Co., Ltd./AM2 of CRI		Same as before	Yu Suzuki	Shenmue series Sega Network Taisen Mahjong MJ series Virtua Fighter 4	^[79]
Hitmaker Co., Ltd.		Sega AM3 R&D	Hisao Oguchi	Crazy Taxi series Virtua Tennis series World Club Champion Football series	^[79]
Amusement Vision Ltd.		Sega AM11 R&D	Toshihiro Nagoshi	Daytona USA 2001 Super Monkey Ball series Virtua Striker series	^[79]
Sega Rosso Co., Ltd.		Sega AM12 R&D	Kenji Sasaki	Cosmic Smash Initial D Arcade Stage series Star Wars Racer Arcade	^[79]
Smilebit Corporation		Sega AM6 R&D	Shun Arai	Pro Soccer Club o Tsukurou! Jet Set Radio series Panzer Dragoon Orta	^[79]
Overworks Ltd.		Sega AM7 R&D	Noriyoshi Oba	Skies of Arcadia Shinobi Sakura Wars series	^[79]
Sonic Team Ltd.		Same as before	Yuji Naka	Phantasy Star Online Samba de Amigo Sonic the Hedgehog series	^[79]
United Game Artists Co., Ltd.		Sega AM9 R&D	Tetsuya Mizuguchi	Rez Space Channel 5 series	^[79]
Wave Master Inc.		Sega AM10 R&D	Yukifimi Makino	Roommania #203	^[79]
Sega Mechatro		AM6	Unknown	Medal games Starhorse series UFO Catcher series
Mirai R&D		AM5	Hiroshi Uemera	McDonalds no Touch de Asobo! Speed Boarder Viva! Skydiving
Sonic Team USA	Sega of America	Sonic Team Ltd.	Takashi Iizuka	Sonic Adventure 2
WOW Entertainment (US Team)		AM1, WOW Entertainment Inc.	Makoto Uchida	Alien Front	^[63]

2003–2004

Department	Division	Members From	Headed By	Notable Titles	Ref(s)
Sega WOW Inc.	R&D, Sega Corporation	WOW Entertainment Inc. + Overworks Ltd.	Rikiya Nakagawa	Dragon Treasure Nightshade Sakura Wars series	^[79]
Sega AM2 Co., Ltd.		Same as before	Hiroshi Kataoka	Quest of D series OutRun 2 Virtua Cop 3	^[79]
Digital Rex Co., Ltd.		Sega AM2 Co., Ltd.	Yu Suzuki
Hitmaker Co., Ltd.		Hitmaker Co., Ltd. + Sega Rosso Co., Ltd.	Mie Kumagai	Avalon no Kagi series Initial D Arcade Stage series World Club Champion Football series	^[79]
Amusement Vision Ltd.		Amusement Vision Ltd. + Smilebit Corporation	Toshihiro Nagoshi	F-Zero GX Super Monkey Ball series Ollie King	^[79]
Smilebit Corporation		Amusement Vision Ltd. + Smilebit Corporation	Takayuki Kawagoe	Pro Soccer Club o Tsukurou! Virtua Striker 4	^[79]
Sonic Team Ltd.		Sonic Team Ltd.+ United Game Artists Co., Ltd.	Yuji Naka	Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg Feel the Magic: XY/XX Sonic the Hedgehog series	^[79]
Wave Master Inc.		Same	Yukifimi Makino	New Roommania: Porori Seishun	^[79]
Sega Mechatro		Same	Unknown	Medal games Starhorse series UFO Catcher series
Mirai R&D		Same	Hiroshi Uemura	Mushiking series Love and Berry series
Sonic Team USA	Sega of America	Same	Takashi Iizuka	Sonic Heroes

2005–2008

 

Yuji Naka oversaw Sega game development until his departure in 2006

In 2005 a new structure of game development was announced, after Sega became a subsidiary of Sega Sammy Holdings, and was under new management, with Hajime Satomi from Sammy Corporation at the top. The Consumer Business Group Division contained the Global Entertainment R&D and New Entertainment R&D departments, which all together were divided into six departments, each focusing on something different, such as network, sports,^[80] cinematic and character based games.^{[81][82][83][84]} Particularly the Yakuza / Like a Dragon games by the New Entertainment department already became a franchise for Sega in 2006, and they were motivated to develop it into a character brand similarly to Sonic the Hedgehog, Mushiking and Love & Berry.^[85][86] According to the now former manager Hisashi Suzuki, the Like a Dragon series was only possible due to the experience of Shenmue^[1], and it also inherited elements of the SpikeOut arcade games.^[34] Next generation console development with PlayStation 3 exclusives Ryū ga Gotoku Kenzan! by NE and Valkyria Chronicles by GE2, and the multi-platform Sonic the Hedgehog 2006 by Sonic Team, also became a focus.^[87] Later, developer Takashi Iizuka admitted that Sonic Team had prioritized shipping games over quality during this period, resulting into several poorly received games in the Sonic the Hedgehog series^[88] Sega Europe president Mike Hayes said that Japanese origin IP became less popular around 2004, with Sega America president Simon Jeffery showing a similar sentiment.^[89] Specifically there was motivation to be seen less like just like another Japanese company by Sega of America,^[90] with them being more picky what to bring over from the Japanese studios since 2005.^[91][92] This was a conscious decision on Japanese management.^[93]

 

The Initial D arcade game series is successful in Japan, but did not appeal to the western arcade market

Trading card arcade games continued to be successful for Sega, with the latest example being Sangokushi Taisen, being developed by developers previously engaged in console games such as Sakura Wars.^[34] Sega also showcased the Lindbergh arcade board along with Virtua Fighter 5, Virtua Tennis 3 and The House of the Dead 4, which was the first arcade board to be based on PC architecture.^[94] The Nintendo DS versions of kids arcade games Mushiking, Love & Berry and Dinosaur King were released, and particularly Love & Berry was successful as it became the first million-seller for Sega in Japan since Virtua Fighter 2. Tastes for arcade games changed on both sides of the world with Yoshimoto saying that potential new employees mentioned in interviews that the newer arcade games with flat panel card readers are the reasons for joining Sega, rather than machines like the R-360. Large driving game cabinets are not as appealing to the Japanese youth anymore and are more popular overseas.^[39] Western arcades became focused on casual players, while core players remained in Asia. Which motivated Sega to establish a development base to develop games that better suit the western market, called Sega Amusements Europe.^[95]

Yuji Naka left during this period in 2006 with Yu Suzuki following in 2011.^[96][97]

Department	Division	Members From	Headed by	Notable Titles	Ref(s)
GE1 (includes Sonic Team)	Consumer R&D, Sega Corporation	Sonic Team	Akinori Nishiyama	Puyo Puyo series Mind Quiz Sonic the Hedgehog series	^[98]^[99]^[100]^[101]
GE2		Sega WOW	Akira Nishino	Bleach Project series Sakura Wars series Valkyria Chronicles	^[102]^[103]^[101]
GE3 (includes Sonic Team)		Sonic Team	Takao Miyoshi	Kaseki Play Phantasy Star Universe	^[101]^[104]
Network Business Promotion		New	Takeshi Tokunaga	Sega Splash Golf The Typing of the Dead 2	^[105]
NE		Amusement Vision	Toshihiro Nagoshi	Super Monkey Ball series Yakuza series	^[106]^[107]^[101]
Sports Design		Smilebit	Takaya Segawa	Pro Soccer Club o Tsukurou! series Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Virtua Pro Football
AM1	Amusement R&D, Sega Corporation	Sega WOW	Yasuhiro Nishiyama	Answer X Answer series Sangokushi Taisen series The House of the Dead 4
AM2		Sega-AM2	Hiroshi Kataoka	After Burner Climax Sega Network Taisen Mahjong MJ series Virtua Fighter 5
AM3		Hitmaker	Mie Kumagai	Initial D Arcade Stage series Virtua Tennis 3 World Club Champion Football series	^[108]^[109]
AM Plus		Sega-AM2	Yu Suzuki	Sega Race TV
Family Entertainment		Mirai R&D	Hiroshi Uemura	Mushiking series Love and Berry series	^[110]
Products		Sega Mechatro	Unknown	Medal games Starhorse series UFO Catcher series
Sega Amusement Europe		New Studio	Paul Williams	Ford Racing: Full Blown Sega Rally 3
Sega Studios Shanghai	Sega of China	Sega WOW	Makoto Uchida	Altered Beast NiGHTS Into Dreams Sega Ages 2500 Series Vol. 26: Dynamite Deka
Sega Studio USA	Sega of America	Sonic Team USA	Takashi Iizuka	Shadow the Hedgehog Nights: Journey of Dreams

2009–2017

 

Maimai arcade cabinets have been updated for over a decade

Sega management had high expectations for Nagoshi to develop a worldwide hit after creating the successful Yakuza series, which eventually became Binary Domain.^[111] Similarly the developers behind IP that sold well in Japan such as the Phantasy Star series had a desire to aim for worldwide audiences, much like the developers behind the Sonic the Hedgehog, Super Monkey Ball and Mario & Sonic games. Binary Domain was not very successful, which made the team reflect on to keep making authentic Japanese games rather than being anything else.^[112] Games for smartphones became a huge focus, particular with the keywords free to play and cross play. Sega learned from its experience from Kingdom Conquest which it translated to Samurai & Dragons for PlayStation Vita. Particularly Phantasy Star Online 2 was very much developed to be multi-platform with the addition of the PC platform and Vita, it also having versions available on iOS and Android.^[113] Arcade staff also began developing for smartphones with Alexandria Bloodshow and Samurai Bloodshow, which lead to Chain Chronicle, a successful earner for Sega.^[114][115] AM2 also began to develop smartphone games with Soul Reverse Zero.^[116]

 

Toshihiro Nagoshi became Chief Creative Officer of Sega in 2012

According to AM2 developer Makoto Osaki, Sega shifted its focus to internet games in the arcades rather than huge cabinets after server maintenance costs went down.^[117] Profits for arcade games were still higher than for console, mobile and PC games all the way to the fiscal year of 2014.^[118] Border Break became a huge success being supported for many years in arcades.^[119] Music games was another area of success for Sega with Hatsune Miku: Project Diva Arcade and Maimai, both of which received many updates. Long time musician Takenobu Mitsuyoshi has said that the arcade industry in Japan is "fundamentally not strong" right now, mentioning that only music games have developed long standing popularity.^{[120][121][122]} Ports of arcade games were developed primarily as downloadable games for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 with Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown, Daytona USA (previously Sega Racing Classic) and After Burner Climax, among others.^[123]

The market in North America and Europe was seen as very "tough", with Sega taking sight on the wider Asian market instead.^[113] Sega announced that for the West they will focus on fewer franchises which were Sonic the Hedgehog, Total War, Football Manager and Aliens, with Sonic being the only Japanese IP.^[124] Atlus became part of Sega in 2013,^[125] with the acquisition of Atlus USA being finalized in 2016. Atlus USA made it possible to localize Japanese Sega IP Yakuza and Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA to the western market. With the new policy of increasing localized titles, the "bridge team" was founded in 2017, to better support communication between Sega of America and Sega of Japan.^[126]

Department	Division	Members From	Headed by	Notable Titles	Ref(s)
CS1 (includes Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio)	Consumer R&D, Sega Corporation (2009-2015) Sega Games Co., Ltd. (2015-2018)	NE R&D + Sports R&D	Toshihiro Nagoshi	Binary Domain Super Monkey Ball series Yakuza series	^[127]^[128]^[129]^[130]
CS2 (includes Sonic Team)		GE1 R&D + Sega Studio USA + Sports R&D	Takashi Iizuka, Osamu Ohashi	Mario & Sonic series Puyo Puyo series Sonic the Hedgehog series	^[131]^[132]^[133]^[134]^[135]^[136]^[137]^[138]^[139]
CS3		GE2 R&D + GE3 R&D	Akira Nishino	Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA series Rise of Nightmares Valkyria Chronicles series	^[140]
Sega Networks		NE R&D + Network Business Promotion	Masayoshi Kikuchi	Demon Tribe Kingdom Conquest series War Pirates
Online		GE3 R&D + Network Business Promotion	Takaya Segawa	Phantasy Star Online 2 Sega Network Taisen Mahjong MJ series Yakyuu Tsuku!!	^[141]
AM1	Amusement R&D, Sega Corporation (2009-2015) Sega Interactive Co., Ltd. (2015-2018)	AM1 +AM3	Yasuhiro Nishiyama	Code of Joker series Maimai series Wonderland Wars series	^[142]
Sega AM2		AM2 + AM3 + AM Plus	Hiroshi Kataoka	Border Break series Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA Arcade series Kancolle Arcade
Products		Same as before	Unknown	UFO Catcher series
N.Pro		Products R&D	Yuji Sugimori	E-DEL Sand Nail Puri
Sega Amusements Europe		Same as before	Paul Willams	Race Driver: GRID Showdown Dream Raiders
Sega Studios Shanghai	Sega of China		Makoto Uchida	Daytona Championship USA Dreamcast Collection Transformers: Human Alliance

2018–present

 

Sega moved from Ota, Tokyo to Shinagawa, Tokyo in 2018, along with many other companies from the Sega Sammy Holdings umbrella.^[2]

The COVID-19 pandemic caused Sega to restructure their arcade business and place some of its developers onto console and smartphone games.^[143]

Sega plans to release "Super Game", a framework of game development that has the following requirements: online, IP utilization, multi-platform, multi-language, simultaneous worldwide release and AAA. According to Sega Sammy CEO Haruki Satomi, Lost Judgment and Phantasy Star Online 2: New Genesis are first steps into fulfilling this framework.^[144] Additionally this Super Game development team will be a hybrid of developers that were previously involved in console, mobile and arcade games that eventually will add up to several hundred people.^[145] Unreal Engine 5 will be used, with Unreal Engine 4 already being used prior by other development teams. First by the arcade divisions,^[146] and then Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio with its remake of Like A Dragon: Ishin!.^[147] In terms of IP utilization it is planned to resurrect past IP for these projects. Virtua Fighter 5: Ultimate Showdown is an example of this.^[148] The first game of this category will be releasing by the fiscal year of 2026.^[149] The name Super Game was chosen to differentiate it from the Metaverse.^[150] From the four development divisions, 3 is confirmed to be developing these titles, which have experience developing GaaS type titles, including Phantasy Star Online 2 as well as various mobile games, and has over 600 employees. Division 1 and 2 are focused on developing their typical titles that are known including Sonic the Hedgehog and Like a Dragon games, while Division 4 focuses on mobile.^[151][152]

A secondary development base called Sega Sapporo Studio was established in 2021.^[153]

Nagoshi and Daisuke Sato left Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio in 2021.^[154]

Department		Members From	Headed by	Notable Titles	Ref(s)
Div. 1 (includes Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio)	Consumer R&D, Sega Games Co., Ltd. (2018.2020) Sega Corporation (2020-present)	CS1 R&D + Sega AM2	Masayoshi Yokoyama	Super Monkey Ball series Virtua Fighter 5: Ultimate Showdown Yakuza/Like A Dragon series
Div. 2 (includes Sonic Team)		CS2 R&D + CS3 R&D + Sega AM1	Osamu Ohashi	Mario & Sonic series Puyo Puyo series Sonic the Hedgehog series
Div. 3		Online R&D + Sega Networks + Sega AM1 + Sega AM2	Yuya Kimura	Phantasy Star Online 2 Jet Set Radio Untitled Super Game	^[155]^[156]^[157]
Div. 4		Sega Networks	Katsutoshi Kioka	SEGA Pocket Club Manager Shin Megami Tensei: Liberation Dx2 One Piece Bounty Rush	^[158]
Div. 5 #1	Amusement R&D, Sega Interactive Co., Ltd. (2018-2020) Sega Corporation (2020-2024) Sega Fave Co., Ltd. (2024-present)	Sega AM1 + Sega AM2	Takashi Mori	House of the Dead: Scarlet Dawn Initial D Arcade Stage series Sangokushi Taisen series
Div. 5 #2				Border Break Fate/Grand Order Arcade Soul Reverse
Div. 5 #3				Chunithm series Maimai series Ongeki series
Div. 5 Products		Same as before		Medal games UFO Catcher series
Sega Amusements International	Kaizen Entertainment	Sega Amusements Europe	Patrick Michael, Shinichi Osagawara	Transformers: Shadows Rising MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE ARCADE
Sega Studios Shanghai	Sega of China	Same as before	Makoto Uchida

Acquired/founded studios

Studio	Division	Year of purchase/founding	Notable titles
Creative Assembly	Sega Europe	2005	Alien: Isolation Spartan: Total Warrior Total War (series)
Sports Interactive		2006	Eastside Hockey Manager series Football Manager series
Hardlight		2012	Sonic the Hedgehog series Chu Chu Rocket Universe! Crazy Taxi: City Rush
Relic Entertainment		2013	Age of Empires IV Company of Heroes series Dawn of War series
Atlus	Sega Corporation	2013	Megami Tensei series Etrian Odyssey series Persona series
Play Heart	Sega Corporation, Mobile	2015	Fist of the North Star LEGENDS ReVIVE Gold Rebellion R Liberation of Azure
Amplitude Studios	Sega Europe	2016	Endless Space Endless Legend Humankind
Two Point Studios		2019	Two Point Campus Two Point Hospital
Rovio Entertainment		2023	Angry Birds series Small Town Murder Sugar Blast

Former studios

Studio	Division	Year of purchase/founding	Year of release/dissolution	Fate	Notable titles
Gremlin Industries	Sega Enterprises	1978	1983	Sold and Merged into Bally Manufacturing	Deep Scan Head On Monaco GP
Sega Technical Institute	Sega of America	1990	1996	Dissolved	Comix Zone Dick Tracy Sonic the Hedgehog series
SONIC! Software Planning	Sega of Japan	1991	1995	Merged into Camelot Software Planning	Shining series
CRI			2004	Remained with CSK following their divestiture of Sega	Dyna Brothers Aero Dancing Charge'n Blast
SIMS				Dissolved	OutRun 2019 Sega Bass Fishing Stellar Assault
Sega Interactive	Sega of America	1992	2000		Eternal Champions series Greendog: The Beached Surfer Dude! Garfield: Caught in the Act
Sega Midwest Studio			1995		World Heroes NHL All-Star Hockey '95
Sega Multimedia Studio			1997		Jurrasic Park Wild Woody
No Cliché	Sega Europe	1999	2004		Toy Commander Toy Racer
Visual Concepts	Sega of America	1999	2005	Sold to Take-Two Interactive	Floigan Bros. NFL 2K series NBA 2K series
Sega Racing Studio	Sega Europe	2005	2008	Sold and Merged into Codemasters	Sega Rally Revo
Sega Studios San Francisco	Sega of America	2006	2010	Dissolved	Iron Man series Golden Axe: Beast Rider
Sega Studios Australia	Sega Europe	2006	2013	Dissolved	Medieval II: Total War Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse London 2012
Three Rings Design	Sega of America	2011	2016		Puzzle Pirates Spiral Knights
Demiurge Studios	Sega of America, Mobile development	2015	2020	Sold back to co-founder^[159]and then to Embracer Group under Saber Interactive^[160]	Crazy Taxi: Gazillionaire Sega Heroes

See also

• Lists of Sega games

References

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