Welcome to VintageSega.com
Sega Corporation began in 1940 with the name Standard games making coin-operated amusement games for service men. The company later changed its name to Service Games before finally settling on Sega Corporation.
In 1951, the company moves to Japan. with a large US presence in the area, and later registers the name SEGA, which is taken from SErvice GAmes of Japan.
In 1965, SEGA Enterprises merges with Rosen enterprises.
However, it was not until the 1980s that the company turned to electronic video games. In 1983, they released the SG-1000 based on laserdisk game. Two of SEGA's early hits include Frogger and Zaxxon.
SEGA reported US$214 million in 1982, but with the video game crash of 1983, the company started losing significant amounts of money. As a result, Gulf+Western sold off SEGA's assets: US assets were sold to Bally while the Japanese assets were sold to David Rosen and Hayao Nakayama.
In 1986, the SEGA of America was formed to take advantage of the recovering North American video game market. SEGA released the Sega Master System with Alex Kidd. Alex Kid was the company first mascot before being replaced in 1996 by Sonic the Hedgehog.
SEGA's main competitor was Nintendo. Between 1989 and 2000, SEGA launched many advertising campaigns against Nintendo showcasing how better were SEGA's abilities.
However, SEGA's demise began with the release f the SEGA 32X. Despite high demand, the console was abandoned shortly after its release. This angered many SEGA customers and soured many of them from buying the SEGA Saturn the following year.
The Saturn, despite being ahead of it's competitors, suffered poor sales and was eventually abandoned three years later.
SEGA released the Dreamcast in 1998 and it got off to a good start with far better graphics and features than the competition. However, the unit failed to reach significant sales and was cancelled in 2001, pulling SEGA from the console market.
In 2001, Sega Discontinues the Dreamcast and exits the hardware console market, focusing on software game development.
In 2004, SEGA is bought by Sammy Corporation, changing the name to SEGA Sammy Corporation.
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