SEGA Company

Sega Corporation is an international company that produces video games and (until 2001) equipment for them. Sega is headquartered in the Shinagawa Special District of Tokyo. A branch of Sega of America is located in Irvine, California, where they distribute games and slots in North America. The Sega Europe office is located in Brentford (a suburb of London), Sega Publishing Korea is in Seoul.

Sega was founded on June 3, 1960 by American businessmen Martin Bromley and Richard Stewart under the name Nihon Goraku Bussan. Shortly thereafter, the company acquired the assets of its predecessor, Service Games of Japan. Five years after acquiring arcade game importer Rosen Enterprises, it became Sega Enterprises, Ltd. In 1966, Sega developed its first arcade game, Periscope. Sega was sold to Gulf and Western Industries in 1969. After a decline in the arcade business in the early 1980s, Sega began developing video game consoles, starting with the SG-1000 and the Master System, but had to compete with competitors such as the Nintendo Entertainment System. In 1984, Sega executives David Rosen and Hayao Nakayama led a management buyout of the company with financial backing from CSK Corporation.

In 1988, Sega released their next gaming system, the Sega Mega Drive. The Mega Drive struggled to compete in Japan, but found success overseas with the release of Sonic the Hedgehog in 1991 and briefly outsold its archrival in the US, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Later in the decade, Sega suffered several commercial failures such as the 32X, Saturn, and Dreamcast. In 2001, Sega stopped making game systems to become a third party developer and publisher, and was acquired by Sammy Corporation in 2004. In the years since the acquisition, Sega has become more profitable. Sega Holdings Co. Ltd. was established in 2015, then Sega Corporation was renamed Sega Games Co., Ltd., and its arcade, entertainment and toy divisions were spun off into other companies.