SEGA co-founder David Rosen passed away on Christmas Day, 2025

It’s a sad day for all of us Sega fans. One of the most important people in the entire history of Sega has finally left this mortal coil.

David Rosen, the founder of Rosen Enterprises, which would later become the company we all know and love today as Sega, has passed away on December 25th, 2025 at the age of 95 in his Hollywood Hills, Los Angeles home. His funeral was held on January 2nd, 2026 at Inglewood Park Cemetary. News of his passing only just became public on January 2nd courtesy of Replay Magazine.

Very few people in the history of Sega are more worthy of being celebrated than David Rosen. He alone began the chain of events that led to the creation of Sega, and by extension, many of the games they had brought to the world that touched our hearts for decades. Whether it’s Sonic the Hedgehog, NiGHTS, OutRun, Phantasy Star, Shenmue, Like A Dragon, or countless other examples, Mr. Rosen allowed for all of that to eventually be possible.

But it’s not just Sega fans who have plentiful reason to celebrate this man’s life. Part of why Mr. Rosen founded Rosen Enterprises in the first place is because he saw great potential in the coin-op market in post-war Japan. His company was first made to help import coin-op games, which we know now as arcade games, to Japan. This eventually led to Sega making arcade games of their own, but the entire arcade industry owes a major debt of gratitude to Mr. Rosen for that.

If you’d like to hear more about the prestigious spot Mr. Rosen holds in video game history, you can hear more past the break. For now, though, on behalf of SegaBits and Sega/gaming fans around the globe, we salute the amazing David Rosen and thank him for his services to gaming. We are glad he lived such a long, fulfilling life and that he may now rest in peace. Many condolences go out to his surviving family and friends as well.

Before Rosen Enterprises, David Rosen was part of the United States Air Force. He was stationed in Japan as he served in the Korean War from 1949 to 1952. After that, he formed Rosen Enterprises in 1954 in Japan to import electronic photo booths and slot machines to the country from the US as he saw Japan’s economy slowly beginning to improve from the aftermath of the Korean War and World War II. A lot of legendary Japanese gaming companies actually had similar origins, as Taito started around the same time importing vending machines and jukeboxes and even Namco began by maintaining electronic kids rides for department stores. Mr. Rosen merged Rosen Enterprises with another company that imported jukeboxes, Nihon Gurraku Busan, in 1965, turning the new company into Service Games, or as we know it today by its shorthand name: Sega, or Sega Enterprises Ltd. Rosen served as the newly merged company’s president and CEO.Rosen noticed the growing popularity of shooting gallery coin-op game machines in Japan. By then, every arcade in every city in Japan had at least one or two, and Rosen Enterprises had imported a great deal of them themselves in the years leading up to the merger. Sega produced it’s very first shooting game of its own in 1966: Periscope. It was also Sega’s first original arcade game (Though it was an adaptation of a different game called Periscope from Namco made the year before), and the first arcade game to start play from just a single quarter in the USA and 30 Yen in Japan, both of which became the standard price of a credit in arcade games for years to come. It was also a huge hit in all three major sectors of the gaming industry: Japan, the United States, and Europe.

Atari had debuted their first major hit, as well as one of the earliest hit video arcade games, Pong, in 1972, and this was also among the games that Sega Enterprises Ltd. imported to Japan, before the short lived Atari Japan did it themselves. This was also a hit in Japan and would be the catalyst for Sega to eventually begin producing its own first video arcade games later that same decade.

While Rosen was still president and CEO of Sega Enterprises Ltd., he had sold the company to media conglomerate Gulf+Western in 1969. After that, Rosen also became a director for Paramount Pictures (The very same Paramount Pictures who would make the Sonic the Hedgehog live action movies decades later), who were also owned by Gulf+Western at the time. Gulf+Western would later sell off the US branch of Sega Enterprises Ltd., known at the time as Gremlin Industries Inc., to Bally-Midway in 1984, one year after the launch of the SG-1000 in Japan. With Sega of Japan up for grabs after this, Rosen, alongside Hayao Nakayama and Isao Okawa, would all buy the Japanese side of the company soon after. Okawa became the new Sega’s chairman, Nakayama became the president, and Rosen became the co-president. Then, in 1986, Rosen formed Sega of America. Both companies are still in operation today, though they both operate very differently now than they did in the 80’s and 90’s. Rosen stayed on as co-president of Sega of Japan and America and oversaw the international launches of the Master System, Genesis/Mega-Drive, Game Gear, and Saturn until he finally left Sega in 1996. Mr. Rosen would retire after that, but he would still see Sega through the Dreamcast years and their eventual merger with Sammy as an advisor.

As far as we know, David Rosen passed away peacefully in his LA home, and deservingly so, because his keen eye for the potential of arcade games over half a century ago was right on the money. He was one of many key figures who nurtured this very young industry through a rough period of establishment and change, not to mention the infamous 1983 video game crash in North America. He also saw tons of potential in both Japan and the United States as driving forces in the video game industry for years to come, which is why he felt the need to form Sega of America in the mid 80’s when Sega, for a brief time, had no more presence in North America beyond a few arcade games released during that time. Many of the major players in the gaming industry, including Sega, come from both Japan and the US today and both countries continue to innovate video games almost constantly.

But most important to us at SegaBits, along with our massive community, is the simple fact that Sega would not exist today without David Rosen. He formed and ran a company responsible for some of the finest games and franchises the world has ever seen and we’ve all come together as a community through our shared love of those games and the experiences they brought us. SegaBits was among many websites formed from this shared love of the games Sega birthed over the years and it continues to be a gathering point for this amazing community of fans who were inspired by the many games Sega has provided us and will continue to provide us. We cannot thank David Rosen enough for making all of this possible.

You’re all welcome to share with us your best memories with Sega and any special ways it changed your lives in the comments below. Feel free to also leave your fondest farewells to the legend that is David Rosen and your warm wishes to his next of kin. Also, this may be a good time to remind you to reach out to your own loved ones, especially the elderly. You never know when their time will come, so let them know how appreciated they are while you still can.

For an extra read on Mr. Rosen, you can also check out this translated interview with him and Hayao Nakayama from 1978, during Sega Enterprises Ltd.’s time under Gulf+Western’s umbrella, provided by our friends at Sega-16.

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