Smilebit

From Sega Retro

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

Smilebit (スマイルビット) was a research and development subsidiary of Sega Corporation. It is best seen as a logical continuation of Sega Software R&D Dept. 6 (formerly known as Sega CS1). It is largely different to CS1, with the majority of those developers leaving Sega to join the new start-ups Artoon and Land Ho!, or having joined the new Sega Software R&D Dept. 9/United Game Artists. Smilebit is largely based on Sega PC instead. Over time, Smilebit became the de facto studio for sports games, with the majority being aimed at Japan. Internationally, Smilebit was known for it's high-end Dreamcast and Xbox titles. Those developers ended up at largely at New Entertainment R&D Dept..

Following a corporate restructure at Sega in October 2003, Smilebit was redefined as a developer exclusively dedicated to sports games[3][4]. President Shun Arai was transferred to Sega Creative Center, replaced by Takayuki Kawagoe, and the developers associated with the Panzer Dragoon and Jet Set Radio franchises migrated to Amusement Vision[3], taking with them the in-development arcade game Ollie King.

The company was reintegrated with Sega Corporation as Smilebit Div (スマイルビットDiv) in July 2004, and rebranded as Sega Sports Design R&D Dept. in November the same year.[5]

Company statistics

  • Capital: 120 million yen[6][7], 220 million yen[8]
  • Number of Employees: 105 (2000-07-01)[6], 106 (2000-07-01)[7], roughly 60 (2003-10-01)[8]

Softography

Dreamcast

Game Boy Advance

PlayStation 2

GameCube

Triforce

Xbox

Chihiro

Windows PC

List of staff

Photo gallery

Magazine articles

Main article: Smilebit/Magazine articles.

External links

References

  1. ↑ File:IR EN 2003-07-30.pdf, page 4
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 File:IR EN 2004-05-18.pdf
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 https://dengekionline.com/data/news/2003/10/2/4de4797b84de660ec1f84f185bf76b5d.html (Wayback Machine: 2023-11-22 22:17)
  4. ↑ https://www.4gamer.net/games/999/G999905/20180418132/ (Wayback Machine: 2023-11-30 00:25)
  5. ↑ http://sega.jp/segamoba/about/column.html (Wayback Machine: 2009-12-19 12:39)
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Dreamcast Magazine, "2000-26 (2000-08-04,11)" (JP; 2000-07-21), page 35
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 http://www.smilebit.com/gaiyou.html (Wayback Machine: 2001-04-12 11:40)
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 http://www.smilebit.com/company/company.html (Wayback Machine: 2004-06-12 19:19)


Timeline of Sega of Japan research and development divisions








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