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.

EDIT: I’ve edited my write-up on Sega following the Gulf+Western buyout to clear up some false information. My apologies for that.

SEGA Sammy to merge SEGA Games and SEGA Interactive in April 2020


SEGA Sammy has announced that two of it’s subsidiaries, SEGA Games and SEGA Interactive, are going to be merged into a single entity called SEGA Corporation. While SEGA Holdings Ltd. will be renamed to SEGA Group Cooperation. For context, SEGA technically isn’t a single entity, but rather multiple divisions under the SEGA Sammy umbrella, in this case SEGA Games handling the video games and SEGA Interactive handling amusement machines like UFO catchers. According to the official PDF file describing the merger, the decision was due to wanting to strengthen their research and development on new products for a global market, while also citing their previously discussed “Road to 2020” plan as another influence. It’s also possibly related to their declining arcade division, though that was not officially cited.

This merger is being planned for a April 1st 2020 schedule, though meetings between shareholders are also planned during February and March 2020. It’s promised that these changes will not dramatically impact production on future products, again with the claim that having these divisions under a single union will improve productivity for a global market.

[Source: PDF, Stream]

Super Monkey Ball coming back? SEGA Japan trademarks Tabegoro! Super Monkey Ball

SEGA Games has just trademarked the name Tabegoro! Super Monkey Ball in Japan, if you didn’t know Tabegoro means ‘ripe, ‘in season and/or ‘good to eat’. Makes perfect sense for a brand new Super Monkey Ball game, considering how delicious those bananas look.

Its crazy that the last ‘non-mobile’ title was Super Monkey Ball: Banana Splitz on the Playstation Vita way back in 2012. I remember one of the first titles we reviewed for this site was Super Monkey Ball: Step & Roll on the Wii, so its been a long, long time since we had a new Super Monkey Ball. Are you excited to go ape around in the Super Monkey Ball world?

[Via: Gematsu]

Bayonetta crosses over into Shin Megami Tensei: Dx2 Liberation

Bayonetta coming to Shin Megami Tensei: Dx2 Liberation was first teased at this year’s Tokyo Game Show but it has now been officially shown off on the 1st year anniversary stream.

While I get why some people are a bit put off with anything that has to do with mobile games, since they are so different compared to traditional games, I think this crossover makes sense and I hope we see more SEGA own IPs make cameos in Dx2.

[Via: Persona Central]

SEGA Games CEO talks to CNBC about demand for retro SEGA consoles

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CNBC had a interview with SEGA Games young CEO Haruki Satomi where he discussed what SEGA was up to in modern times and talked about fan demand for SEGA retro consoles. According to Satomi, he specifically gets a lot of demand for the SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive. We know the company just announced SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive Classics for PS4, Xbox One and PC. When pressed by the interviewer if SEGA had plans for a retro console, he said:

“Depending on fans request… if we hear more request and its a reasonable business for us then it might happen in the future.”Haruki Satomi, CEO of SEGA Games

A really cool part of the interview is Haruki Satomi discussing what ‘Nintendo has done right with AR, like Pokemon Go’ (which is weird because Pokemon Go isn’t created by Nintendo), then Satomi goes into talking about SEGA doing VR first back in the mid-90s. While its cool to see CNBC do a interview with Haruki Satomi, I would have loved if they had someone that knows more about SEGA interview him. You know, like us?

SEGA announces Wonder Gravity RPG for Smartphones

SEGA Games has announced Wonder Gravity ~The Pino and the Gravity User~ as a 2018 mobile title. SEGA has confirmed that the game will be free-to-play and include microtransactions. The story for the game will be written by Yasuko Kobayashi who has written for Japanese TV shows such as Samurai Sentai Shinkenger and Kamen Rider Den-O. The game will focus on you fighting monsters called ‘Debris’ by using the strengths of different gravity fields to attack.

Wonder Gravity ~The Pino and the Gravity User~ story will have you playing in a world without land or ocean, where humans live with Pinos, which are tiny beings created by stars and if you eat their fruit you can become a gravity user. In the game, the main character Hugo receives a message from his long lost father telling him to reach a place called “Endroll”, which happens to be at the bottom of the world and is said to have a mysterious power (very typical JRPG story line). Not too sure what to think of the game myself, it does seem a bit like Sony’s Gravity Rush, no? Maybe its just the name, I guess…

[via: Siliconera]

Round Table: Our thoughts on SEGA Games’ new CEO Haruki Satomi

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It has been a rough path being a SEGA fan, while I do feel like they have made some great games in the past decade, its easy to see that they have also made their fair share of mistakes. A few weeks ago the newly elected Sega Games Co. CEO and Vice President, Haruki Satomi had a interview with Famitsu where he discussed how he felt some games SEGA released in the last decade abused fan’s trust towards the brand and how they are learning from Atlus in the West.

Of course the internet was an uproar, some even stating that SEGA hasn’t released a good game in a decade. Regardless of how you feel about SEGA, its always good for a company to take feedback and be straight when talking about the company. So this week’s round table we discuss what we thought of Mr. Satomi’s interview.

SEGA Games CEO talks about fan reactions to his Famitsu interview

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If you missed it, Haruki Satomi the newly elected CEO of SEGA Games Co. (he was hired on April 1st) did a Famitsu interview where he talked about how SEGA has released software in the last 10 years that he felt betrayed fan’s trust in the brand. Says he believes quality Japanese games can sell in the West and among other comments that lots of SEGA fans across the globe agreed with.

Haruki Satomi obviously has been getting e-mailed by media about those comments and he sent the following message to Siliconera.

“Seeing our fans across the world respond to our recent interview with Famitsu, lets us know we’ve made the right first step in acknowledging who we are and where we want to be. Sega is dedicated to bringing you quality gaming experiences and becoming a brand you love and trust again,”

During the Famitsu interview, he said that they had a game to announce at Tokyo Game Show later in September, this will be one of the first glimpse at where Satomi wants to take SEGA in the future. So what do you think about his comments? Let us know what you think about his comments by leaving a comment in the comment box below (yo dawg).