Sega

**Sega Games Co., Ltd.** (株式会社セガ *Kabushiki gaisha Sega Gēmusu*) is a Japanese multinational video game software and hardware development company, and a former home computer and video game console manufacturer headquartered in Ōta, Tokyo, Japan. The company had success with both arcades and home consoles, but on 2001, Sega officially left the consumer console business and began concentrating on software development instead for multiple third-party platforms.

Sega's main offices, as well as the main offices of its domestic division, Sega Corporation (Japan), are located in Ōta, Tokyo, Japan. Sega's European division, **Sega Europe Ltd.**, is headquartered in the Brentford area of London. Sega's North American division, **Sega of America Inc.**, is headquartered in Irvine, California, having moved there from San Fransisco, California in 2015. They were originally based in Redwood City, California.
**Sega Publishing Korea'**s headquarters are located in Jongno, Seoul, Korea. On 1 November 2000, Sega changed its company name from **Sega Enterprises, Ltd.** to **Sega Corporation**.

As of 1 July 2012, **Sega Australia** and all other European operations apart from United Kingdom have closed down due to economic pressure. However, all the employees from Sega Australia formed a company called **Five-Star Games** which handles the distribution of Sega products in Australia, still located in Sydney, New South Wales.

## History

### Origins

Sega was founded in 1940 as Standard Games (later Service Games) in Honolulu, Hawaii, United States, by Marty Bromely, Irving Bromberg, and James Humpert to provide coin-operated amusements for American servicemen on military bases. Bromely suggested that the company move to Tokyo, Japan in 1951 and in May 1952 "**SE**rvice **GA**mes of Japan" was registered.

In 1954, another American businessman, David Rosen, moved to Tokyo and established the company Rosen Enterprises, Inc., in Japan to export art. When the company imported coin-operated instant photo booths, it stumbled on a surprise hit: the booths were very popular in Japan. Business was booming, and Rosen Enterprises expanded by importing coin-operated electro-mechanical games.

Rosen Enterprises and Service Games merged in 1965 to create Sega Enterprises. Within a year, the new company released a submarine-simulator game called *Periscope* that became a smash-hit worldwide.

In 1969, Gulf+Western purchased Sega, and Rosen was allowed to remain CEO of the Sega division. Under Rosen's leadership, Sega continued to grow and prosper. In 1976, they released a large screen TV, Sega-Vision (not to be confused with their portable media player, Sega Vision).

In the video game arcades, Sega was known for games such as *Zaxxon*, the first game to employ axonometric projection, and *Hang-On*, the world's first full-body-experience video game.

Sega's revenues would hit $214 million by 1982 and in 1983, Sega would release its first video game console, the SG-1000, the first 3D arcade video game, *SubRoc-3D*, which used a special periscope viewer to deliver individual images to each eye, and the first laser-disc arcade game, *Astron Belt*.

In the same year, Sega was one of the victims of the video game crash. Hemorrhaging money, Gulf+Western sold the U.S. assets of Sega to famous pinball manufacturer Bally Manufacturing Corporation. The Japanese assets of Sega were purchased for $38 million by a group of investors led by Rosen and Hayao Nakayama, a Japanese businessman who owned Esco Boueki (Esco Trading) an arcade game distribution company that had been acquired by Rosen in 1979. Nakayama became the new CEO of Sega, and Rosen became head of its subsidiary in the United States.

In 1984, the multi-billion dollar Japanese conglomerate CSK bought Sega, renamed it to Sega Enterprises Ltd., headquartered it in Japan, and two years later, shares of its stock were being traded on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. David Rosen's friend, Isao Okawa, the chairman of CSK, became chairman of Sega.
In 1986, Sega of America was poised to take advantage of the resurgent video game market in the United States.

## References

1. ↑ http://www.gamespot.com/news/2680518.html
2. ↑ http://web.archive.org/web/20080711072551/http://www.sega.com/corporate/
3. ↑ http://web.archive.org/web/20030729064053/http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/1998/06/11/BU14012.DTL
4. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20180828021218/http://www.ign.com/articles/2000/06/30/sega-enterprises-to-change-name
5. ↑ http://web.archive.org/web/20081220144004/ttp://www2.sega.com/corporate/corporatehist.php
6. ↑ Loguidice, Bill; Barton, Matt (24 February 2014). Vintage Game Consoles: An Inside Look at Apple, Atari, Commodore, Nintendo, and the Greatest Gaming Platforms of All Time. CRC Press. p. 169
7. ↑ http://web.archive.org/web/20131102084429/http://www.arcade-history.com/?n=periscope&page=detail&id=14579
8. ↑ http://web.archive.org/web/20130502234210/http://www.nytimes.com/1993/07/04/business/sega-takes-aim-at-disney-s-world.html?pagewanted=4