Difference between revisions of "Sega"
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{{MainArticle|History of Sega}} | {{MainArticle|History of Sega}} |
Revision as of 14:47, 1 May 2017
Sega (セガ) is an international digital entertainment and media company currently headquartered in Ota, Tokyo, Japan. Founded in the mid-1940s, Sega experienced rapid growth in the 1980s and 1990s to become one of the dominant forces in its field. It remains to this day a major player in the worldwide video game industry, covering arcade, console, handheld, mobile and PC markets.
"Sega" is a trading name used by various iterations of the company since the early 1950s. Sega Enterprises was the longest corporate name, Sega held all the way up to July of 2000. In July of 2000, Sega became known as Sega Corporation. As of 2004, Sega operates under a collective holding company known as Sega Sammy Holdings. In April 2015, Sega Corporation was dropped in favor of multiple sub-divisions; Sega Games, handling the video game consumer business, Sega Interactive which deals with the development and production of arcade games, and Sega Entertainment, responsible for the running of commercial venues[1].
In practice, all divisions and groups within the company are generally refferred and known collectively as "Sega". Furthermore Sega's operations are typically referred to by region; Sega of Japan, Sega of America and Sega Europe being the main three.
Contents
History
- Main article: History of Sega.
Arcades
Sega has had a strong presence in the arcade industry since the 1960s. It initially produced electro-mechanical games in the 1960s and 1970s, before moving on to arcade video games in the 1970s.
In the 1980s and 1990s arcade scene, Sega went from strength to strength, leading the market with hits such as Space Harrier, OutRun and After Burner before becoming a driving force behind 3D gaming in Virtua Racing and the massively successful Virtua Fighter. It also saw success in other areas - its UFO Catcher line of crane games continues to this day. In the 21th century its networked arcade franchises such as World Club Champion Football and Border Break remain unrivalled. Western arcades began to declne with the arrival of home consoles. However in Japan, Sega's eleborate cabinets kept costumers interrested in going to arcades with experiences not avaible at home.[2]
Since the 1960s, Sega has been opening its own arcade centres, peaking in the 1990s when hundreds of Hi-Tech Land Sega, Sega World and Club Sega venues were spread across Japan. It also operates its own indoor Joypolis theme parks, and has claims to resorts and restaurants. Sega arcades have also operated (albeit at a much smaller scale) in the US and across Europe, peaking with its line of GameWorks arcades in the early 2000s.
As arcades began to decline in the late 1990s, so too did Sega focus in the arcade market. Forced to innovate to keep customers, Sega's sees itself in the position of keeping the Japanese arcade market alive. Equally many of its arcade hits such as Daytona USA and Sega Rally Championship remain in active service worlwide more than twenty years after release.
Video game consoles
1983 marked a turning point for Sega. after it entered an increasingly crowded Japanese video game console and home computer market with its latest invention, the SG-1000 (and computer counterpart, the SC-3000). Between 1983 and 1985 many significant recruitments were made for this new "consumer products" division that would shape the company's image in the decades that followed, and while the SG-1000 was unable to unseat Nintendo and their Family Computer, support from its arcade business kept them firmly in the game. It was also one of the few Japanese systems to make it across the border, making a limited mark on Australia, New Zealand, France, Italy, Sweden and parts of Asia.
Next came the Sega Mark III in 1985, a more competitive system ready to take on Nintendo coupled with a plan to launch overseas. In its redesigned Sega Master System form, Sega started to become a household name, appearing in various guises not only in Japan, but across North America, Europe and Brazil. While a distant second in Japan and the US, the Master System triumphed in smaller markets, not least to its unique ties to Sega's industry-leading arcade divisions.
Sega entered perhaps its most successful period in the western market with the 16-bit Sega Mega Drive in 1988, capturing not only the lion's share of the market in Europe, but regularly unseating Nintendo's dominance in the US. The invention of company mascot Sonic the Hedgehog and his ground-breaking video game revolutionised the industry at large, but did little to impress its Japanese homeland. Extensions in the Sega Mega-CD and Sega 32X struggled to gain traction, but the company saw reasonable success through it's full colour portable handheld system, the Sega Game Gear.
The early 1990s also saw Sega as a driving force behind video game content regulation, following the North American controversies surrounding Night Trap and Mortal Kombat. Sega's contribution in the US was the Videogame Rating Council - a system to highlight potentially inapprorpate games for younger children. Sega of America were at the forefront of this debate, and Tom Kalinske was happy to accept the eventual establishment of the Entertainment Software Rating Board, which has been the de-facto regulator of North American video games since 1994. Elsewhere Sega pushed its own ratings systems, and despite the creation of the Japanese Computer Entertainment Rating Organization 2002, continues to add extra warnings (entirely of its own accord) for violent content.
With the 32-bit Sega Saturn, Sega's console fortunes were reversed in Japan, unfortunately at the expense of everywhere else. While initially strong, the Saturn tore apart the firm in the US, and led to the company's first recorded loss for the year ending March 1998.
Attempts at revival were made with the internet-focused Sega Dreamcast the following November, but despite a strong selection of games and a devoted fanbase, the company found itself unwilling and unable to compete against its peers in the PlayStation 2, Xbox and Nintendo GameCube. In January 2001 the firm abandoned its home console ambitions, focusing instead as a third-party developer and publisher.
Merger with Sammy
The demise of the Dreamcast saw Sega focus its efforts as a third-party video game manufacturer, aiming to be the largest of its kind by March 2004[3]. But financial troubles eventually saw it merged with pachinko-firm Sammy, leading it to operate under a collective Sega Sammy Holdings holding company.
In the third party era, Sega has had little mass market success in the western market, with the exception of the long-standing Sonic The Hedgehog franchise which has endured wide flunctations of quality. On the flip-end, Sega has been successfull at carving out niches with the western PC strategy market, as well mobile and arcade titles aimed at Asian audiences. Recently Sega also made an unpreecented move in completly replacing their former american branch in the San Francisco area, with that of video game localization experts Atlus USA.
External links
References
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Service Games, Hawaii & Nevada & Japan | Nihon Goraku Bussan & Nihon Kikai Seizou | Sega Enterprises, Inc. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sega Enterprises, Ltd. | Sega Ltd. & Gremlin | Sega Ltd. |
Timeline of Sega of Japan research and development divisions |
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