Hitmaker

From Sega Retro

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Hitmaker
Founded: 2000-04-21[1]
Defunct: 2004-07-01[2]
Headquarters:
Japan
2000-04-21
2004-07-01

Hitmaker (ヒットメーカー) is a former internal development studio owned by Sega. It was founded in 2000 largely on the remains of Sega Software R&D Dept. 3 (formerly Sega AM3), and was one of the ten that was spun off during the 2000 restructure.

AM3 was a dominant force within Sega throughout the 1990s, however had been arcade-orientated by design. With Hitmaker, this focus shifted more towards home consoles, but as the arcade section did not go away, this led to Hitmaker producing a large proportion of Sega games during the 2000-2004 period.

The biggest international successes for Hitmaker were Crazy Taxi and Virtua Tennis, popular on their original arcade releases and subsequent Dreamcast ports. In Japan, however, the studio also changed the Japanese arcade landscape, with World Club Champion Football: Serie A 2001-2002 and The Key of Avalon: The Wizard Master. These titles, alongside Sega AM2's Virtua Fighter 4 and Mirai R&D's Mushiking: The King of Beetles, popularised new features and dynamics with cards and internet usage.

In October 2003, Sega Rosso was merged back into the studio.[1]

Hitmaker had their own record label, Hitmaker Records, for a short period.

Company statistics

  • Capital: 140 million yen[3][4], 190 million yen[5]
  • Number of Employees: 124 (2000-03)[3][4], 188[5]

Softography

NAOMI

NAOMI GD-ROM

NAOMI Satellite Terminal

NAOMI 2 Satellite Terminal

Hikaru

Chihiro

Triforce

Dreamcast

PlayStation 2

GameCube

Xbox

PlayStation 3

Game Boy Advance

N-Gage

Windows PC

i-mode 503i

J-Sky (50KB)

EZweb (Java Phase 2/2.5)


List of staff

Magazine articles

Main article: Hitmaker/Magazine articles.

Promotional material

External links

References


Timeline of Sega of Japan research and development divisions








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