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A Brief History of Sega
by Steven Kent for Gamers Today
Originally founded in the early 50s as Rosen Enterprises by American businessman Dave Rosen, Sega Enterprises started out importing photo booths from the United States to Japan. Rosen expanded his importing business to include electro-mechanical arcade games within a few years, and soon began manufacturing his own games.
Sega was a powerful force in the arcade business throughout the eighties. Sega of America imported the game Frogger, which was originally created by Konami. Throughout the years, Sega's arcade division has created such hits as Pengo, Outrun, Virtua Cop, and Golden Axe. The company's best-known designer, Yu Suzuki, is credited with such hits as Hang On, Space Harrier, Virtua Fighter, and Daytona.
The first home console Sega tried to market in the United States was the Master System, which was sold as the Mark III in Japan. Introduced in 1986, the Master System was slightly more powerful than the Nintendo Entertainment System, but lacked the software support. Nintendo had a several-year head start in Japan, and a few of the leading Japanese game makers such as Capcom, Konami, and Taito manufactured English versions of their top games to round-out Nintendo's library.
Sega temporarily dropped out of the American console market by 1988 and returned again in 1989 with the 16-bit Genesis. The system did not catch on immediately; but in 1990, a former president of Mattel Toys named Tom Kalinske took the helm and turned things around. Under Kalinske, Sega dropped the price of the Genesis from $189 to $149 and eventually to $129. He also replaced Altered Beast, the game that came packaged with the system, with a brand new game called Sonic The Hedgehog. Kalinske fought for an American-based game design group to make games that would have more appeal in the U.S. market. Finally, under Kalinske's watch, Sega adopted a new, high-attitude advertising campaign that included the distinctive "SEGA scream."
Industry experts expected the Genesis to fade away with the 1991 launch of the Super NES. Instead, Sega outsold Nintendo in 1991 and Genesis continued making very good showings through 1994. By 1993, however, Sega's winning streak had already begun to fade.
In 1993, Sega released a CD peripheral for Genesis. The device, which retailed for $299, was severely under-powered and could not display video footage clearly. Over-priced and under-powered, Sega CD lingered on the market for several years but never really caught on. In November of 1993, Sega also released an ill-fated virtual reality controller called the Activator that disappeared quickly.
In 1994, Sega released 32X, a Genesis peripheral that doubled the system's processing power. Sega released very few games for 32X, and most of the games that were released were reprehensible. By the time Sega released Saturn, a system Sega executives hoped would compete favorably with Sony's 32-bit PlayStation game console, the company had too many systems on the market.
Sega was still supporting the Master System in South America at the time. In the United States, it had two portable systems--Game Gear and the Genesis-compatible Nomad, a console for young children called Pico, 32X, Sega CD, Genesis, and Saturn. All of the systems except Saturn, which was officially discontinued in 1998, died by the end of 1996. The Sega Saturn actually sold better than the Nintendo 64 in Japan, but it did very poorly elsewhere. In the end, Sega abandoned the system to concentrate on a new 128-bit game console that was eventually named Dreamcast. Sega plans to release Dreamcast in the United States on September 9, 1999, at a cost of $199.
Most reporters were skeptical of Dreamcast until this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo. When Sega announced that the system would be launched with 15 games next Fall, then demonstrated several exceptional games, the company won over many of its detractors, present company included.
