Sega of America

From Sega Retro

For the company that traded as Sega of America between 1974 and 1984, see Sega Enterprises, Inc..

Sega of America, Inc. is the American branch of video game developer Sega.

History

Pre-1986

An group photograph of Sega of America's employees, taken during its early years.

Sega has technically had a presence in the United States ever since its 1946 inception as an American entity, but it was it’s later Japanese incarnation Sega Enterprises, Ltd. that would grow to see actual success. Acquired by Gulf+Western in 1969, the purchase allowed the company to expand into the American market in 1974 with the establishment of Sega Enterprises, Inc. in Los Angeles, California. Initially importing Japanese games while producing games of their own (and even a consumer television), this American branch also traded under the name “Sega of America” for the next decade.

Eager to expand Sega’s newfound presence in the United States, the company acquired American arcade developer Gremlin Industries to become Gremlin/Sega, and with the increased production capability was able to steadily establish itself in the arcades of the early 1980s. It also began to develop arcade ports for the fledgling home market, with games being released on the Atari VCS, home computers, and other platforms. Renaming itself Sega Electronics in 1982, the division continued to produce games up until its assets were purchased by arcade manufacturer Bally Midway the next year.

Later seeking to rejoin the American market, Sega Enterprises, Ltd. would established two new American subsidiaries: Sega Enterprises, Inc. (U.S.A.)[5] on March 21, 1985 to again distribute its arcade games in the West, and Sega of America, Inc. on March 10, 1986[6][2] to assist with consumer products like the upcoming Sega Master System. The two subsidiaries co-existed for several years and both had San Francisco Bay Area offices closely nearby another.

Tonka and the Master System

In late 1987 Sega of America partnered with Tonka to market and distribute their recently-launched (and poor selling) Sega Master System. Tonka’s knowledge of the American toy market was seen as highly valuable, and the joint venture exceeded expectations in turning around ailing Master System sales. While Sega of America choose not to continue this partnership, the experience it gained in the home console market would prove indespensable.

At this time, the American branch served mainly as a channel for bringing games to the West, and as a result Sega’s first home console saw little third-party support. Although sporting a library of quality Sega-produced titles, the console was unable to effectively establish itself in a market dominated by the wildly-popular Nintendo Entertainment System. Nearing the launch of what was now Sega of Japan’s upcoming 16-bit machine, American executives identified what they believed to be holding the company back, and what changes would be necessary, for eventually taking on Nintendo’s monopoly of the home market. Above all however, it was felt that the American market needed games tailored for American tastes; a philosophy would be at the heart of much of Sega of America’s methodology. Instead of waiting for the production of Japanese software, only to have to further localize them, Sega of America could establish in-house game development and produce software domestically.

Sega's Product Development team ensured the launch of the Genesis would be strong enough to challenge Nintendo's monopoly.

While the company prepared for the release of the Sega Genesis, newly-hired Director of Product Development Ken Balthaser realized many of these domestic productions would not be ready by the system’s launch. It was decided that Sega of America would contract third-party developers in the United States and Europe to ensure the Genesis launched with games tailored to American tastes. Externally-developed games would be supervised by a Sega of America producer who would coordinate between the two companies, with games often being conceptualized and seen to completion by the same producer.

A strong showing of quality sports games was also deemed as crucial to breaking through to the Western market, and together with the upcoming machine being leagues above what the Nintendo Entertainment System could currently provide, Sega of America was finally ready to introduce North America to the next generation. And it needed to show consumers that a geared-up competitor had finally arrived; one that could dethrone Nintendo.


Genesis Does

Sega of America's headquarters in Redwood Shores

The 1989 launch of the North American Sega Genesis was overwhelmingly successful. While supported by a quality game library of foreign and domestic games (some featuring something novel - celebrity endorsements), the Genesis most strongly banked on its clever marketing to demonstrate the machine’s superiority over the existing Nintendo Entertainment System. Most notable was the 1990 ad campaign Genesis Does. Created by advertising agency Bozell, it was an instant hit with both Sega executives and the American public. With a tagline of “Genesis Does What Nintendon’t”, the campaign produced a stunning commercial featuring numerous celebrities, shots of colorful games, and a catchy accompanying song featuring the line “You can’t do this on Nintendo.” Many began to see Sega as not just the first real competitor to Nintendo, but as the next step entirely.

Suddenly, Sega of America had created a corporate image for themselves, but one framed by Nintendo: Sega was the cool, cutting-edge company that makes games for cool older American kids, and Nintendo was the safe, slow rival. With the arrival of Sonic the Hedgehog, the continued success of the Sega Genesis against the Nintendo juggernaut was all but assured, and while this corporate image would grow less appealing as more forced attitude was used, it showed that Sega was willing to focus everything in its power to show it was the true “anti-Nintendo.”

In January 1993, Sega of America hired Lante Corporation, a computer consulting firm, to install a linked computer network (complete with e-mail) at the company.[7]

Sega of America would later establish the Videogame Rating Council rating system for its games in the summer of 1993. Created in response to Mortal Kombat’s Sega Genesis release to further differentiate mature themes in its games, the system would directly influence the design of the industry-wide Entertainment Software Rating Board created the following year.

32-bit era

The Sega Super 32X was originally designed as a standalone console to replace the Sega Mega Drive. In Japan, that platform was not as popular as had been hoped, and a more-modern but still backward-compatible system seemed more feasible. In the United States however, the Sega Genesis had a significant market share and was already installed in millions of American homes. Sega of America reasoned that to ask those consumers to replace their systems entirely was unfeasible, and the end result of these discussions was the Sega Super 32X’s redesign as a peripherial for existing Sega Mega Drive hardware.

Struggles selling the Sega Saturn in North America led to a scaling back of internal production and consolidation of many of Sega of America’s development teams.

Post-2001

Beginning in 2005, Sega of America underwent a string of wide restructurings. Sister company Sega Enterprises, Inc. merged with the company on April 1, 2008[5]. The resulting company retained the name Sega of America.

After a 2015 evaluation of the company’s future, it saw further downsizing, and relocated from its San Francisco, California office to one in Irvine, California. Now sharing offices with the Sega-owned Atlus USA, both companies are primarily focused on localization and licensing.

An additional office dedicated to handling the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise exists in Burbank, California. The office, and its team, go by the title Sonic Studio.

Development software

Sega of America utilized a number of computer programs to facilitate development of the company's video games.

Name System Date Description Images
Sega Character & Animation Tool IBM PC 1991 Sega Character & Animation Tool is a proprietary IBM PC development system which allowed developers to access a digitization and animation platform which could be used in a physical Genesis. It was programmed by Interactive Designs and first used in 1991. SegaCharacterAnimationTool MD US title.png

Softography

Master System

Mega Drive

Game Gear

Mega-CD

32X

Mega-CD 32X

Commodore 64

IBM PC

Atari ST

Amiga

Pico

Saturn

Dreamcast

Game Boy Advance

PlayStation 2

GameCube

Xbox

N-Gage

Nintendo DS

PlayStation Portable

Xbox 360

PlayStation 3

Wii

Nintendo 3DS

PlayStation Vita

Wii U

PlayStation 4

Xbox One

PlayStation Now

Nintendo Switch

Nintendo Switch Online

PlayStation 5

Android

iOS

LCD

Apple TV

CD

Epic Games Store

GOG

Magazine

OS X

Ouya

Palm OS

RealOne Arcade

Saturn V08

Steam

Toy

VHS

Windows PC

Windows Phone 7


Master System

Mega Drive

Game Gear

Sega CD

Sega 32X

Sega Saturn

Dreamcast

PlayStation 2

GameBoy Advance

Xbox 360

PlayStation 3

Wii U

Xbox One

PlayStation 4

Nintendo Switch

PC

Accessories produced

Master System

Mega Drive

Game Gear

32X

Saturn


List of divisions

Photo gallery

  • SoA devs sportsgame.png

External links

References

  1. ↑ California Business Search: Entity #C1299989
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Sega Visions, "February/March 1993" (US; 199x-xx-xx), page 81
  3. ↑ Summer CES Directory, page 269
  4. ↑ E3 2001 Directory, page 103
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 California Business Search: Entity #C1271130
  6. ↑ California Business Search: Entity #C1299989
  7. ↑ https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=15731881370343358003&q=sega+-accolade&hl=en&as_sdt=2006&as_vis=1
Overseas Sega companies, studios and subsidiaries
84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23
CSK Sega Sammy Holdings
  Sega of America
  Sega Technical Institute
  Sega Away Team
  Sega Europe
  Sega France   Sega France
  Sega Consumer Products S.A   Sega Spain
  Sega Vertriebsgesellschaft Sega Austria
  Sega Interactive
  Sega Deutschland   Sega Germany
  Sega Amusements Taiwan Sega Taiwan
  Sega Denmark
  Sega Belgium
  Sega Netherlands
  Sega Multimedia Studio
  Sega Midwest Studio
  Sega Amusements USA
  Deith Leisure Sega Amusements Europe Sega Amusements International
  Sega Total Solutions
  Sega Prize Europe
  Sega Music Group
  SegaSoft
  Sega Entertainment
  Hyundai-Sega Entertainment
  Sega Enterprises Israel
  No Cliche
  Sega of America Dreamcast
  Sonic Team USA   Sega Studios USA
  Visual Concepts
  Sega.com
  Sega.com Asia
  Sega of China
  Sega Mobile Sega Networks Inc.
  Sega Publishing Korea
  The Creative Assembly
  Sega (China) Network Technology Co., Ltd
  Sega Benelux
  Sega Studios San Francisco
  Sports Interactive
  Sega Studios Australia
  Three Rings Design
  Relic Entertainment
  Atlus USA
  Demiurge Studios
  Go Game
  Sonic Studio
  Amplitude Studios
  Sonic Team USA
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