https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sega_Studios&redirect=noSo I have worked on this for a quite a while now...I discovered this japanese wiki page that documents japanese companies internally.
http://www13.atwiki.jp/game_staff/pages/13.htmlI observed that information with Google Translate, and researched around (such as Sega Retro) and pieced it together.
Previous documentation on Sega's development teams was kind of poor I feel. Nintendo, Atlus, Square Enix have decent lists on the web, while Sega's 2003 era structure stayed officially as corrent for like 9 years (Valykria Chronicles and 7th Dragon being made by SEGA WOW while at the Sega Arcade division being just one type of nonsense). And overall it just gave people the impression, and the old saying that "oh Sammy killed all of Segas internal teams, they dont make any games anymore!"
Glad that Segabits, during the developer year didn't try to stick together games that were made by Sega pre-2000, or post 2004.
Anywho, here are some interresting snippets while researching:
In the old era:
Tetsuya Mizuguchi had his own "Emotion Engine Research and Development" office in 1992...wonder if that was the basis for Rez, Sega Rally, hmmmm...
There was also a "RPG Project Office", with Rieko Kodama in it, presumably it's own department for RPG games, on the Saturn all Sega RPG's were partnerships, perhaps it was a studio for those games...OR Skies of Arcadie was just that long in development.
IC cards for Arcades were introduced by Sega in 1999. That technology was in development since the early 90's.
All the above started around the same time, Yu Suzuki started prototyping Shenmue...it seems all these projects were a long time in the making. And only the IC card idea for Arcades took off.
In the new era:
The "New Business Division" in 2001 was the eventual release for the Mushiking arcade machine in 2003, the very first kids card arcade game. Started of a sub-industry in Japanese arcades.
And for those who say the mobile and PC Online strategy from Sega is only as old as their newest financial report...that is wrong as well.
Mobile studios at both Arcade and Consumer division were established in 2010, as well as an Online R&D Department.
Then recently a new arcade department opened, with their first release being the sand sculpting arcade machine.
I had fun researching and putting this together, so I hope you like reading through it.
