Sega Rosso

---

This teeny-tiny article needs some work. You can help us by expanding it.

---

Sega Rosso (セガ・ロッソ) was a major development studio owned by Sega between 2000 and 2003. It was led by Kenji Sasaki.

At less than 50 staff, Sega Rosso was the smaller first-party studio serviced by Sega during this period. Sasaki and many of his peers had previously migrated from Namco (having worked on the original Ridge Racer), being part of Sega AM3 (working on Sega Rally Championship) and then Sega AM8 during the 1990s. When the previous Sega AM5 merged into Mechatronics in 1999, AM8 became the "new" AM5 for a few months - Sega Rosso is the continuation of this effort.

As Sega was considered to be "blue" and "cool", Sasaki wanted to name the company after something "red" and "hot", eventually landing on "Sega Rosso" - rosso being the Italian word for red. A core part of the company was dealing with racing games, though it branched off into other areas too. Many of its games did not leave Japan, making it one of the lesser known Sega companies of the era. It was also one of the last to get its own logo and identity, so often went uncredited as a studio.

Sega Rosso started with four development "lines"; Star Wars Racer Arcade, NASCAR Arcade, Cardcaptor Sakura: Tomoyo no Video Daisakusen and Cosmic Smash. It is most famous for starting Sega's series of arcade racing games based on the Initial D anime license.

In Octobetr 2003 the studio was merged into Hitmaker, creating an odd case where the PlayStation 2 game, Initial D: Special Stage credits Sega Rosso in its original release, but Hitmaker in the PlayStation 2 The Best budget range.

Softography

Hikaru

• Star Wars Racer Arcade (2000)
• NASCAR Arcade (2000)

Dreamcast

• Cardcaptor Sakura: Tomoyo no Video Daisakusen (2000)
• Cosmic Smash (2001)

NAOMI

• Cosmic Smash (2000)
• La Keyboard XYU (2001)

Game Boy Advance

• Sega Rally Championship (2002)

NAOMI 2

• Initial D: Arcade Stage (2002)
• Soul Surfer (2002)
• Initial D: Arcade Stage Ver. 2 (2002)
• Initial D: Version 3 (2004)

PlayStation 2

• Initial D: Special Stage (2003)