There is one suggestion that keeps popping up
Well in fact, it is by far
the most requested video on my channel
So here you go!
This is the evolution of Sega!
Sega's history begins in sunny Hawaii,
where three businessmen founded "Service Games" in 1946.
That's where the name Sega comes from,
it is an abbreviation of "Service" and "Games"
"Service" because of 'military service'
and 'Games' because the company provided slot machines for U.S military bases.
However, when the US government banned slot machines in 1952,
Martin Bromley, one of the original founders, sent employees to Tokyo
to establish 'Service Games of Japan' to provide slot machines to U.S. bases in Japan.
However, the US government came knocking on the door again in 1960
for investigating criminal business practices.
Service games changed its name, stopped focusing on slot machines
and moved away from U.S military bases.
The company acquired Rosen Enterprises to form Sega Enterprises.
Sega imported coin-operated amusement machines,
like jukeboxes,
pinball machines
and gun games.
These were bought second-hand and often required frequent maintenance.
This led to the company developing its own games.
Their first official game was a submarine simulator called 'Periscope',
which was released globally in the late 1960's.
From there, Sega edged its way into the booming arcade market,
becoming one of the top five arcade game manufacturers in the United States.
During the early 80s Sega created many games
and the company revenues rose to 214 million dollars.
When the arcade market took a downturn though,
Sega moved into home consoles.
Fun Fact:
The name 'Sega' was first used in 1954 on a slot machine called the 'Diamond Star'.
Sega first made the SC-3000, a computer with a built-in keyboard,
but when Sega learned that Nintendo had plans to create a games-only console,
they decided to do the same.
This was the start of the console wars between Sega and Nintendo
that would continue for many years to come.
Both the SC-1000 and the Famicom were released in Japan
on exactly the same day, July 15, 1983.
Games that featured in the SG-1000 lineup
included Super Tank,
'Congo Bongo'
which looks a lot like Donkey Kong,
'Space Invaders'
a true classic arcade game,
and 'James Bond 007',
which was the second James Bond game in the whole franchise.
And although these games were fun,
they weren't as popular and recognizable as many of the Nintendo games,
like Donkey Kong,
Donkey Kong Junior,
and Popeye.
Nonetheless the SC-1000 became a huge success.
While Sega expected to have sold 50,000 units by the end of 1983,
they ended up selling 160,000 units.
The SG-1000 Mark II came out a year after the first console.
It was redesigned and had a port to connect an optional keyboard.
There was also an optional add-on called 'The Card Catcher'
that allowed users to play Sega Card games, in addition to cartridges.
Fun Fact:
Hideki Sato, who designed many of the Sega consoles
thougt the original cartridges looked like "small black tombstones",
so he replaced them with 'Sega My Cards'.
He later stated it was one of his proudest achivements during the SG-1000 era.
In October 1985, the Sega Mark III was launched in Japan
which featured enhanced graphical capabilities over its predecessors.
However, the console was not succesful at launch.
One year later the Sega Mark III was completely rebranded as the "Master System"
for its launch in North America,
with the hope that it would do better than it did in Japan.
"The pressure was very, very high!" Sega developer Mark Cerny said.
So high, that an average game would only have 3 months of development time.
No wonder many games at launch weren't that memorable.
Luckily more memorable games arrived in the following years,
including Prince of Persia,
Castle of Illusion,
Alex Kidd in Miracle World,
and last but definitely not least,
Sonic the Hedgehod,
which would become the most recognizable and popular franchise for Sega.
Nintendo had also rebranded their Famicom system for the North American market
with the NES or Nintendo Entertainment System.
Both Sega and Nintendo spent around 15 million dollars
to promote their consoles in North America.
"The Sega Master System with more accurate control, more detailed graphics, more levels of play."
In 1990 Sega released the Master System II,
a cheaper and smaller model, in North America and Europe.
While Nintendo dominated the American market,
Sega was successful in Europe.
But overall Sega turned out to be no match for Nintendo.
Mainly because of their hugely successful and popular franchises
like Donkey Kong,
Metroid,
The Legend of Zelda,
And of course
Super Mario Brothers.
While the Sega Master System sold around 13 million units globally,
Nintendo managed to sell a whopping 62 million units of the NES.
Fun Fact:
While most people associate Sonic the Hedgehog with Sega
and recognize him as their mascot,
Alex the Kidd was actually Sega's first mascot.
He first appeared on the Master System in 1986,
in the game 'Alex Kidd in Miracle World'.
In fact, when the Master System 2 came out,
it would typically have Alex Kidd pre-installed on the system.
In October 1988, Sega unleashed their masterpiece;
the Sega Genesis.
Known as the Mega Drive outside of the US.
It was the first 16-bit console,
which was a huge leap forward compared to is 8-bit predecessor.
This meant that games were more fluid, 3D, faster and had much more colors.
Sega heavily promoted their console's revolutionary blast processing,
which allowed gamers to enjoy high-speed titles like Sonic!
The console had some though competition
with the Super Nintendo Entertainment System or SNES.
Nintendo at this point had a much bigger following and also a larger budget,
so Sega had to think outside of the box to gain more attention.
That's when they released their ad campaign, and started to take jabs at Nintendo.
"What if you don't have glass processing?"
And one of my favorite commercials of all time:
While Nintendo is very family friendly, with cute fun games like Super Mario World,
Sega wasn't, and released games like Mortal Kombat,
which has often been criticized for its unrestrained use of graphic and bloody violence.
But Sega also had many friendly titles,
Like Disney's Aladdin,
Lion King,
and of course
the Sonic the Hedgehog games.
Nintendo had Mario as their mascot
and Sega also wanted an iconic mascot,
this of course became Sonic.
However finding a great mascot wasn't easy.
Sega made all kinds of designs,
including this rabbit and an American wolf.
Eventually Sega made a wise decision to use Sonic.
Sonic was fast, and edgy just like the Sega Geneis was meant to be.
Sega released a smaller and lighter version of the console,
dubbed the Genesis II, in 1993.
In addition, a handheld version called 'The Genesis Nomad' came out in 1995,
with the ability to play the same cartridges on a portable device.
It had some powerful technical specs and was the first 16-bit handheld.
The handheld was based on the Mega Jet,
which was designed for use on airline flights in Japan,
which is pretty cool I guess.
The Genesis Nomad sold about 1 million units,
but was considered a commercial failure.
Overall the Sega Genesis with all its variants ended up selling 35 million units,
and came closer than ever before to Nintendo.
However, Nintendo still got the upper hand by selling 49 million units of the SNES.
Fun Fact:
South Korea had a ban on Japanese products,
so Nintendo distributed their SNES console by Hyundai
and it received the name;
Super Comboy.
Sega on the other hand distributed their Sega Genesis console by Samsung
and it received the bizarre name;
Super Aladdin Boy.
The Genesis Nomad wasn't Sega's first attempt at a handheld console.
That honor fell to the Game Gear, which was released in 1990.
It was up against the Game Boy,
yeah... Sega really couldn't catch a break!
And its specs were actually very impressive for the time and far superior to Game Boy's.
It even had a color screen long before Nintendo released the Game Boy Color.
However, the extra power needed to run Sega's Game Gear meant that battery life was a lot shorter.
It only had around 4 hours of battery life compared to the 30 hour battery life of the Game Boy.
It also cost significantly more than its rival,
priced at 149 dollars at launch compared to just 89 dollars.
Third-party game developers weren't interested in developing games for the Game Gear.
That led to a game library that was very similar to that seen on the Master System,
with the games like Prince of Persia,
Castle of Illusion: Starring Mickey Mouse,
and Sonic the Hedgehog.
The Game boy ended up outselling the Sega's handheld by more than ten times!
Totaling 118 million sales compared to the Game Gear's 10.6 million.
In 1991, Sega released a peripheral for the Genesis called the Sega CD
also known as the Mega CD outside of the US.
It is considered a console within its own right,
since the processing power of the original system was boosted
and games could be played on CD,
which allowed for games to be nearly 320 times larger than the Genesis cartridges.
"Hey!
You still don't have a Sega CD?
What are you waiting for, Nintendo to make one?
You have seen the games right?
Wrong answer man.
Show'em!"
A total of 205 games were made for it,
including Mickey Mania,
Sonic CD,
And Batman Returns.
There was also Desert Bus,
where players do nothing but drive a bus on a desert road for miles on end.
It's widely considered to be the most boring game of all time.
The Sega CD performed poorly compared to its parent console.
Only 2.2 million Sega CD's were sold.
Fun Fact;
in 1993 the United States Congress began to hold hearings on
video game violence marketed towards children.
Sega was known for its violent games,
including Sega CD's night trap,
a terrible horror game.
This scene sparked a lot of controversy,
as it was seen as too violent.
Surprisingly it isn't that graphic at all.
This even led to the creation of the Entertainment Software Rating Board or ESRB,
which gives age and content ratings to video games.
The controversy got Sega a lot of publicity
and only reinforced the edgy attitude of the company.
But that edginess wasn't seen on the Sega Pico released in 1994.
It was designed as an educational and entertaining system
for children aged between 2 and 8 years old.
Children could play games
like 'Tails and the Music Maker'
and 'Sonic the Hedgehog's Gameworld'.
In 2005 Sega launched an updated verison of the Pico,
called the Advanced Pico Beena,
which also worked as a handheld.
The Pico was a hit in Japan but failed to catch on elsewhere.
Still Sega reported sales of 3.8 million Pico consoles,
so it still did better than the Sega CD!
In a last ditch attempt to prolong the life of the Genesis even further,
Sega released another peripheral in 1994;
the 32X.
Sega of America and Sega of Japan had their differences
if the 32X should have been a peripheral or a new console.
These two would continue to clash over many disagreements.
The 32X added support for 32-bit games,
as opposed to just 16-bit games,
and was therefore capable of playing ROM cartridges
that were different to the Genesis itself.
Titles that players could enjoy on the 32X were
'Doom',
Mortal Kombat 2,
Virtua Fighter,
And 'Knuckles Chaotix'
a Sonic games that features Knuckles as the main character.
Only 800,000 units were sold
and the 32X is considered a commercial failure.
The successor to the Sega Genesis is the Sega Saturn,
released in 1994 in Japan
and a few months later with a different design in North America.
However, they shot themselves in the foot
when launching the console in America,
as they made a surprise announcement during E3
that the Saturn would be available...
that same day!
While Sega thought this would be a major win and a positive surprise for everyone,
they didn't count on annoying all the retailers who hadn't been told and weren't prepared for the rush.
Walmart and Best Buy even refused to stock the system and its games at all due to the poor communication.
To make matters worse,
Sega’s price of $399 was seen as good value by their own staff,
until Sony announced that their new console,
the original PlayStation, would be $299.
Oh, and the Saturn was up against the Nintendo 64 that year too!
Meanwhile due to long-standing disagreements between
Sega of Japan and Sega of America,
Tom Kalinske, the CEO of Sega of America, left the company.
Sega’s marketing team did little to help either, freaking out their audience
with more weird adverts that didn’t really showcase the system’s abilities.
While some franchise classics like Virtua Fighter did make it onto the Saturn,
there never came a Sonic 4,
which wasn’t a smart move by Sega.
Instead players received Sonic R,
Sonic Jam,
and Sonic 3D Blast.
It was no surprise that Saturn turned out to be another failure for Sega,
only selling 9.3 million units compared to sales of
32.9 million Nintendo 64’s
and 102.4 million PlayStation's.
Sega’s final attempt at a serious gaming console
came in 1998 with the Dreamcast.
The controller featured a VMU
which is a memory card with a screen.
Some games used it to show additional data,
like inventory or maps.
The Dreamcast was considered to be ahead of its time and was initially successful.
The launch titles were decents as well.
There was Sonic Adventure,
Mortal Kombat Gold,
and Soul Calibur.
Plus later there came more great games
like Marvel vs Capcom 2,
Sonic Adventure 2,
and many others.
Even the price at launch of $199 seemed reasonable.
However, the gaming Gods were once again not on Sega’s side.
Despite some early success,
the Dreamcast failed to gain enough momentum
before the wildly popular PlayStation 2 came out in 2000,
followed by the Xbox in 2001.
Sega only sold 9.1 million units,
compared to sales of 24 million for the original Xbox
and a whopping 155 million units were sold of the PlayStation 2!
Sega discontinued the Sega Dreamcast in 2001,
just 18 months after its release in North America.
With yet another failure,
Sega lost a massive amount of money.
In the last year of the Dreamcast alone,
Sega lost 200 million dollars.
No wonder they decided to stop making video game consoles.
Instead they became a 3rd party developer, and surprisingly ever since,
they have been working with companies like Nintendo,
rather than trying to compete against them.
Who would have thought?
How many of Sega’s consoles did you own
and which was your favorite?
Let us know in the comments!