Sega, Segaaaaaaa

[DeviantArt]

A history of Sega development studios:

So in 1990-98, the Sega development teams were:

Previously from Arcade divisions:
AM1 which made House of the Dead, Golden Axe, Alien Storm, Altered Beast, Dynamite Deka
AM2 which made Virtua Fighter, Outrun, After Burner, Virtua Racing, Space Harrier, Fighting Vipers
AM3 which made Virtual On, Star Wars Arcade, Last Bronx Sega Rally Championship
AM4 which made Daytona USA, Virtua Striker, Spikeout, Manx Superbike
AM5 which made the Sega Rally series, Sega Touring Car, Star Wars Trilogy Arcade, Star Wars Racer Arcade

Previously from Console divisions:
AM6 (Team Andromeda) with Panzer Dragoon
AM7 with Streets of Rage, Sakura Taisen, Phantasy Star, Alex Kidd, Shinobi, Deep Fear
Sonic Team with Nights, BUrning Rangers


Prior to the Dreamcast era, they all split into 2nd parties. Aka the Golden years of 1998-2004:

AM1 > WOW Entertainment with House of the Dead, Sega GT
AM2 > AM2 with Virtua Fighter, Shenmue, etc
AM3 > Hitmaker with Crazy Taxi, Virtua Tennis, Virtual On
AM4 > Amusement Vision with Super Monkey Ball, Planet Harriers, Virtua Striker, F-Zero AX, Ollie King
AM5 > Sega Rosso with Sega Rally, Initial D Arcade, Cosmic Smash, Cardcaptor Sakura: Tomoyo no Video Taisakusan
Team Andromeda > Smilebit with Jet Set Radio, Typing of the Dead, Gun Valkyrie, Panzer Dragoon Orta
AM7 > Overworks with Skies of Arcadia, Shinobi PS2
Sonic Team > Sonic Team with Sonic, PSO, Samba de Amigo, Chu Chu Rocket
AM3+AM5+AM6+AM8 > United Game Artists (UGA) with Space Channel 5 and Rez
Wavemaster, formerly just the producers of all the music for Sega titles, became a developer at this period with Roomania #203, Switch PS2, and New Roomania: Porori Seishun


In 2004-2009, all the separate divisions were reunited into three divisions: Global Entertainment R&D, Amusement Software R&D, and New Entertainment R&D.

Sonic Team, Sonic Team USA, UGA > Global Entertainment R&D with Feel the Magic, Sonic Riders, other Sonic titles, Nights Wii and whatever shovelware they produce
Mobile Contents Development, a new studio with various portable shovelware and Brain Training PSP

Wow Entertainment + Overworks > AM1 (Sega Wow) with House of the Dead 4, Nightshade, Valkyria Chronicles, 7th Dragon, Project ALtered Beast
AM2 > AM2, now Yu Suzuki-less, still makes great titles with Virtua Cop 3, Outrun 2, Virtua Fighter 5, After Burner Climax
Hitmaker + Sega Rosso > AM3 with Virtua Tennis 4, Initial D Stage 4
Family Entertainment R&D, a new studio with Mushiking, Love and Berry, Dinosaur King which makes them basically the king of card sliding arcade games

Amusement Vision > New Entertainment R&D 1 with Yakuza, Super Monkey Ball
New Entertainment R&D 2 (aka AM+ or DigitalRex), a new studio led by Yu Suzuki, with Virtau Striker 4, Sega Race TV, Shenmue Online (cancelled), Psy-Phi (cancelled)
Smilebit > Sports Design R&D with Mario & Sonic at the Olympics, Let's Make a J-League Pro Soccer CLub/Baseball Team

Wavemaster finishes their hands in development with Sonic Battle and Sonic Unleashed, returns to the land of glorious music.


Into 2009 and present:

Global Entertainment R&D + New Entertainment R&D > Consumer R&D so that Yakuza can have their hostess clubs removed next to Sonic the Shithog 5
New Entertainment 2 + AM2 > Sega AM2 again because Yu Suzuki was going on a cancelled rampage without his old colleagues


Thus, the current studios are:
Global Entertainment R&D with Takashi Iizuka making shitty Sonic games + good Puyo Puyo
New Entertainment R&D with Toshihiro Nagoshi with Yakuza
Sports Design R&D with Takayuki Kawagoe making million seller Sonic + Mario at Olympics games
Mobile Contents Development with Kazunari Tsukamoto making god knows what cellphone titles
AM Software R&D 1 with Kazunori Tsuakmoto (same guy?) with House of the Dead 4 wii
AM Software R&D 2 with Hiroshi Kataoka, previously the director of Fighting Vipers, Sonic the Fighters, Fighters Megamix
AM Software R&D 3 with Mie Kumagai, the first ever female studio head at Sega, formerly from Hitmaker. Her former Hitmaker boss Hisao Oguchi is now the current Sega president.
Family Entertainment R&D with Hiroshi Uemura, making awesome card sliding arcade games like LOVE AND BERRY


Curiously enough, Sega has an outsoure studio in China called Sega Studios China. They were involved with Project Altered Beast, Sonic the Hedgehog 2006, Sonic Unleashed, Sega Ages Nights, and most likely the Shenmue Online title. It's unfortunate that most of their titles seem to have tragic endings.

Also, it's interesting to note that there's an internal Sega sound studio called "Sega Digital Sudio," which branched off in the late 90s from the original Sega Sound Team that later turned into Wavemaster. Wikipedia claims that the studio made the music for the Virtua Fighter series, Sonic the Hedgehog series, Nights, Burning Rangers, Skies of Arcadia, and Roommania - which is strange because Roommania was developed by Wavemaster. In any case, the division between Wavemaster and Sega Digital Sudio seem to be in name only, possibly because Wavemaster is its own separate company now handling music for non-videogame related media while Sega Digital Sudio only handles sound for inhouse Sega games.


Also, here is a Sega blue skies reminescence themed podcast I participated in over at Select Button: [link]



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