Sega Toys

Sega Toys (セガトイズ) is a consumer division of Sega Sammy Holdings, which, as the name suggests, focuses on the design and manufacturing of toys.

Sega Toys was founded when, Yonezawa Toys, Japan's largest post-War toy manufacturer, was merged into Sega in 1994. It was briefly known as Sega Yonezawa until the Yonezawa name was dropped entirely in April 1998. Prior to the merge Sega had briefly dabbled in the toy market, but had usually worked with third-parties to get their products to market. The strength behind Yonezawa's back catelogue and distribution channels made Sega Toys one of the largest toy manufacturers in Japan (with strong links with the likes of Hasbro in the west).

Since the early 2000s Sega Toys has become a mostly separate entity from Sega, with its own management structure and goals. Thanks to UFO Catcher and its many derivatives, the two often work together - Sega produces arcade equipment, while Sega Toys produces the prizes. Sega Toys also inherited the Sega Pico and produced software for the console (it has also released video games such as Bikkuriman 2000 Viva! Festival! and Boku Doraemon on the Sega Dreamcast). For whatever reason, Sega views them as a third-party publisher in this case, complete with their own T-series code.

Curiously not all Sega Toys-related video games are dealt with by Sega, such as Sega Toys' popular Ocha-Ken range whose video game adaptions were produced by MTO.

The division's current president is Yoshiharu Suzuki.

Softography

Dreamcast

• Bikkuriman 2000 Viva! Festival! (2000)
• Boku Doraemon (2001)

Neo Geo Pocket Color

• Bikkuriman 2000 Viva! Pocket Festival! (2000)

Windows

• Pico Town ni Dekakeyou! (2001)

Hardware

• Advanced Pico Beena
• Mega Drive Play TV series (Japanese release of Radica Games's Legends series)

External Links

• Website (Japanese)
• Company information — the only English-language part of their site