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Sega
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Sega Games Co., Ltd. (officially stylized as SEGA) is a Japanese video game development and publishing company, having created and developed various video game franchises, the most well-known among them being Sonic the Hedgehog. Sega is also known as a prolific arcade developer, and was once a video game console manufacturer known for being an active and vocal rival of Nintendo. In the early 2000's, however, Sega would move to becoming a third-party developer. Their current name "Sega" is an acronym of one of the company's former titles, "Service Games".
History
Sega was initially founded in 1940 as Standard Games by Martin Bromley, Irving Bromberg, and James Humpert in Honolulu, Hawaii. The company was initially founded to sell coin-operated games (mostly slot machines), primarily selling to the United States military as a means of giving soldiers a way to pass spare time, and later started selling to Allied bases in Japan after World War II ended. By this point, the company had changed its name to Service Games. Even later, in 1951, after the US outlawed slot machines, Service Games moved their operations to Japan, becoming known as Service Games of Japan, and slowly moved focus away from military installations to the Japanese public. In 1965 the company agreed to a merger with Rosen Enterprises, their main competitor, becoming known as Sega Enterprises.
In 1966, Sega released their first arcade title, Periscope. The game was largely successful in Japan, and was later exported. In 1969, David Rosen, the current CEO after the merger, sold the company to Gulf and Western Industries, who made the company a subsidiary in 1972. Throughout the 1970's, Sega would continue to release arcade games, with their success allowing the company to grow. They would first enter the home console market during the 1980's. The company licensed out several of its popular arcade games for release on the ColecoVision and the Atari 8-bit computer series, and would publish some ports for the Atari 2600. After the video game market crash in 1983, in 1984 Sega would release its first home console, the SG-1000, to the Japanese market.
In 1983, Gulf and Western sold Sega's American assets to Bally Manufacturing, a pinball manufacturer. Later, in 1984, CSK would purchase Sega's Japanese assets, moving the company's headquarters to Japan.
In 1985, Sega would release the Sega Master System, their first home console to be released overseas. Although it was successful in some countries, in North America and Japan it failed to overtake Nintendo's Famicom / NES.
In 1989, Sega would release the Sega Genesis / Mega Drive as another competitor to the NES, with a much more aggressive, anti-Nintendo marketing campaign, most notable with their slogan, "Genesis Does what Nintendon't". The Sega Genesis would also launch with the first Sonic the Hedgehog video game, which served as a competitor and rival to Mario. Sega's rivalry with Nintendo would continue through the SNES era. However, after the financial failure of Sega's following two platforms, the Sega Saturn and the Dreamcast, the company restructured itself to be a third-party video game developer, releasing games for other platforms.
In mid-2004, Sammy Corporation purchased a controlling share of Sega Corporation, creating Sega Sammy Holdings. Both Sega and Sammy Corporation became subsidiaries of the larger conglomerate.
Games published by Nintendo
Game | Year | Console |
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Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games | 2007 | Wii, Nintendo DS |
Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games | 2009 | Wii, Nintendo DS |
Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games | 2011/2012 | Wii, Nintendo 3DS |
Sonic Lost World | 2013 | Wii U, Nintendo 3DS |
Mario & Sonic at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games | 2014 | Wii U |
Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games | 2016 | Wii U, Nintendo 3DS |
Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 | 2019 | Nintendo Switch |
External links