"S-E-G-A!", Sega was a once great gaming giant sitting across from Nintendo with a huge ego. Sega used to be a video game developer/ publisher and console manufacturer. Sega is most famous for the Genesis and Sonic the Hedgehog. How did Sega go from making a video game console that caused the creation of the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) to just a decent video game developer/ publisher, let's find out!
The Sega story started when Martin Bromley and Richard Stewart (two American businessmen) founded a company called Nihon Goraku Bussan on June 3, 1960. It wasn't long after that these two acquired the assets of their predecessor, Service Games of Japan. Five years later Service Games of Japan decided to shorten its name to just Sega, becoming known as Sega Enterprises, Ltd. They were an importer of coin-operated games. Sega's first game was Periscope in 1966. Three years later, in 1969, Sega was sold to Gulf and Western Industries. Up to this point, Sega had been making arcade games but this started to change in the 80s. Not only was Sega making arcade games, but now they were fully invested in the home console market with their first console being the SG-1000 in July of 1983 and a few years later with the Master System in September of 1986. Sega struggled against the likes of Nintendo's more popular home console, the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES).
Because Sega was losing the home console fight to Nintendo, they needed an answer to their struggles. This is when Sega decided to make a more powerful console dubbed the Sega Genisis (Mega Drive outside of North America). The Sega Genesis was released only two years after the master System in October of 1988. Sega was counting on the Genesis being a big hit, they needed it to be so that they could take Nintendo head-on. At first, the Genesis seemed like it easily beat Nintendo because of the outdated NES. Nintendo saw the Genesis as an attack and was getting ready to release something that would try and compete with the Sega Genesis. Before Nintendo revealed its next big thing, sega's new console was failing in Japan. Sega needed something to help the Genesis gain traction. In 1991 two things happened, one thing was huge for Sega and the other was huge for Nintendo.
Starting off with Nintendo, 1991 was the year that Nintendo released the video game system that was made to rival the likes of the Sega Genesis. The new Nintendo console was the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) and it was released in September 1991. Nintendo thought that the SNES could rival the Genesis because of the fact that the SNES had 16-bit graphics just like the Genesis (unlike the NES and Master System which both had 8-bit graphics). The other thing that happened was big for Sega. Nintendo already had the video game mascot with Mario and Luigi. Sega had a mascot prior to the Genesis with Alex Kidd. Sega wanted a mascot that was more recognizable than Alex Kidd and opted to design a new mascot. In 1991, Sonic the Hedgehog was born, and finally, Sega had a character that could take Mario and Luigi head-on. Because of games like Sonic, Sega was briefly able to outsell the SNES but only for a short amount of time.
During the 90s, Sega had become full of themselves. Their ego was the size of the moon, and with that, they pulled a term out of their butts. The term was "blast processing." In reality, this term didn't mean much but Sega used the term to relate the speed that Sonic could go as a speed that the Genesis could easily keep up with and without a sweat. Their TV ads showed the SNES attached a very slow Go Kart, most likely making fun of the new SNES games called Super Mario Kart that was released in 1992. Along with blast processing, Sega had new catchphrases like: "Sega does what Nintendon't!" and "You can't do this on Nintendo." This launched Sega and Nintendo into what became known as the console wars.
Sega was being too cocky and they would suffer failure after failure that would make them come crying at Nintendo, asking for Nintendo to forgive them. The first failure for Sega was something new and something that would hurt the reputation of the Genesis. The new device was actually two add-ons for the Sega Genesis. They were the Sega 32X and the Sega CD respectively. First came the Sega CD, this was a CD-ROM based add-on for the Genesis. the Sega CD was released in October of 1992 and could take advantage of of a faster CPU, graphical enhancements, and it could also play audio CD and CD+G discs. A year later in December of 1993, the United States Congress began hearings about video game violence. At this time, video games were mostly marketed to children, and with that violence in these games was a concern to their parents. One of the main games that caused the video game violence controversy was the Sega CD game Night Trap. This controversy caused video game manufacturers to come together to create the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB). The ESRB was meant as a way for parents to tell if the video game was age appropriate for their child.
The second add-on that hurt the reputation of the Genesis was the Sega 32X. The Sega CD plugged into the bottom of the Genesis while the 32X was a device that plugged into the cartridge slot of the Genesis and it's shape kind of resembled that of a mushroom. All together the Sega Genesis, CD, and 32X were known together as the tower of power. The 32X was released in November of 1994. The 32X was a 32-bit cartridge-based add-on for the Genesis. It failed because Sega failed to attract third-party game developers and because of the release of Sega's next console the Sega Saturn which was also 32-bits and released shortly after the 32X in May of 1995. The next failure of Sega was the Saturn. The Saturn was originally successful in Japan but failed to make an impact in the west. This was partially due to the fact that Sega had a surprise launch for the system without telling third-party developers when the launch date was going to be. This caused the Saturn to have a lack of games at launch and a lack of fans lining up to buy the console.
Sega had one more chance to make it in the video game console market. Sega used this time to create the Sega Dreamcast. The Dreamcast was released in September of 1999 and tried to write the wrongs of the Sega CD, 32X, and Saturn. Sega tried to save costs by using cheaper parts, GD-ROM media (cheaper than DVD-ROM media), and a custom version of Windows CE to make porting PC games easier. This time Sega had a successful launch in the west but there quickly became a problem. The problem wasn't anything Sega did themselves and it Wasn't anything to do with Nintendo either. This problem had to do with Sony and their second console, the Playstation 2 (PS2). Because of the failure of the Sega CD, 32X, and Saturn, many of Sega's fans ran in masses over to the more popular Sony PS2. After many price cuts, the Sega Dreamcast got discontinued in March of 2001. This ultimately caused Sega to withdraw from the console business.
Even though the Sega Dreamcast had a very short lifespan, because Microsoft worked alongside Sega with the Dreamcast (Windows CE), It caused Microsoft to want to create a spiritual successor to the Dreamcast. Microsoft began working on the DirectXbox (called that because of DirectX graphics) and later renamed the Xbox before launch in November of 2001. After Sega stopped making consoles, they became a third-party game developer. This made Sega have to release a Sonic game on a Nintendo console, something people thought they would never see.
Sega is still a third-Party game developer to this day and thankfully did not suffer the same fate as companies like Atari. In 2020, The Sonic the Hedgehog live-action movie was released. In 2022, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 live-action movie came out. In November of 2022, Sega released their highly anticipated game Sonic Frontiers. After all of the Sonic movies and new video game, Netflix released Sonic Prime, an animated TV show in December of 2022. Even though Sega doesn't make consoles anymore, it's still really cool to see them alive and kicking!
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