The History of Sega Japan R&D, Part 2: The 90s Golden Age

THE NUMBER ONE ARCADE ENTERPRISE

The Model series of arcade hardware by Yu Suzuki in co-operation with Lockhead Martin, where the next step in the Sega arcade world. Virtua Fighter sold Sega Saturns in Japan.

The Model series of arcade hardware by Yu Suzuki in co-operation with Lockhead Martin, where the next step in the Sega arcade world. Virtua Fighter sold Sega Saturns in Japan.

In Part 1, we looked at Sega’s origins and their Japanese game development during the 80s. In Part 2 we turn our attention to the golden age, when Sega was fought in the console wars and arcades were in full-force globally. Throughout the 90s, Sega would really grow up and mature and have individual divisions, splitting into arcade and consumer software and product development. Many of the programmers, designers and planners of the 80s and earlier would become managers and producers of their own divisions.
Let’s start Part 2 off with the growth of their AM studios, which is short for Amusement Machine Research and Development.

Today Reddit learned that the “SE-GA” voice at the start of the Sonic the Hedgehog took up 1/8 of the cartridge space

Did you know that the intro “SE-GA” chime that we all love took 1/8th of the cartridge space? If you are a regular here, you probably already knew this. If you visit Reddit’s /r/TIL subreddit you probably saw this post and now you are seeing my blog posts regarding that blog post. Inception.

So 1/8th of the space? Totally worth it.