Sega CS2

Sega CS2
Division of Sega Enterprises

Founded: 1991

Defunct: 1995

Headquarters:

Japan

1991

1995

← Sega R&D 2

Sega CS →

← Sega R&D 6

Sega Consumer Research and Development Dept. #2 (nicknamed Sega CS2, which it was officially renamed to in 1994)^[1] was a video game research and development division within Sega. As the name suggests, it was the second "consumer"-specific R&D department created by Sega Enterprises. It was responsible for first-party Sega Game Gear titles, certain Sega Mega Drive titles with international appeal, RPGs for the Mega-CD, and certain early Sega Saturn titles. Notable developers who got their start at CS2 include Tadashi Ihoroi, Kazufumi Ohashi and Shinichi Higashi. It was later followed up by another department named Sega CS2.

History

Consumer Research and Development Dept. #2 was founded in 1991 as a continuation of both Sega R&D 2, which handled Sega Game Gear and Sega Master System title, and Sega R&D 6, one of the departments working on Sega Mega Drive titles. While the teams would generally stay in the same lanes as before, certain projects would have input from both previous departments' developers, such as Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and World of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. CS2 was also the department which developed somewhat early RPG titles for Sega Mega-CD, but many of the developers behind these titles were transferred to Sega CS3 around 1993 or so to continue focusing on Mega-CD and Mega Drive.

With the approach of the Sega Saturn, CS1 and CS2 were assigned to develop software for the new hardware, Game Gear development spun off into the new Sega CS5.^[2]^[3] As producer Makoto Oshitani is the only person currently confirmed a member of CS2 at the time, this indicates Astal as one the department's games, and which features several developers Oshitani had with worked on Sega CS3 games like Streets of Rage 3 and J.League Pro Striker 2. By the same logic, CS2 possibly co-developed Clockwork Knight and Kanzen Chuukei Pro Yakyuu Greatest Nine with CS1 and developed World Advanced Daisenryaku: Koutetsu no Senpuu on its own.

It was abolished in 1995 alongside every other separate consumer department and merged into a temporary single department, with a new Sega CS2 established in 1996.^[4] This new CS2 acted as both a successor to the previous CS2 and Sega RPG Production.

Management

In 1992, the department could in some ways be divided in 2, with several developers in section 1, headed by Noriyoshi Ohba and Tomohiro Kondo (both design), Keiichi Yamamoto (programming) and Hiroyuki Kawaguchi (art). It also housed many developers who frequently worked on Game Gear software (and by proxy, Master System software), which were instead part of its 2nd section, headed by Hiroshi Aso and Katsuhiro Hasegawa (both design, deputy in the latter's case), Eiro Nagata (art) and an unknown programming section manager. Game Gear became the department's sole focus in 1993, with section managers Hiroshi Aso (software development), Junichi Tsuchiya (producer of design), Katsuhiro Hasegawa (design development) and Eiro Nagata (art), the section 1 managers all transferred to CS1 or CS3.^[5]

Sega CS2

From Sega Retro

Contents

History

Management

Softography

Master System

Mega Drive

Game Gear

Mega-CD

Saturn

List of staff

References