1940- Sega starts life as a Honolulu based company called 'Standard Games', formed by Martin Bromely, Irving Bromberg and James Humpert. Coin-operated entertainment machines.
1951- Company moves to Tokyo, Japan.
1952- 'Service Games of Japan' (also known as Sega) officially registered.
1965- Merged with 'Rosen Enterprises', fronted by entrepreneur David Rosen, becomes 'Sega Enterprises'. The main focus of the company is still coin-operated entertainment machines.
Sega Basketball Game 1966(http://www.marvin3m.com/baseball/segabb.htm)
1966- Release of 'Sega Basketball', above, and more importantly 'Persiscope', a submarine simulator game which became a world-wide arcade hit.
1969- Rosen, along with the shareholders, decide to sell Sega to 'Gulf and Western', an American conglomerate. The Sega attitude towards product lines and marketting stayed essentially the same, steadily increasing in success.
1982- Revenues hit $214 million.
1983- Sega's first home console, the SG1000 is released, bringing the company into peoples homes. 'Astron Belt' is also released, the world's first laserdisc game, and 'Subroc-3D', the world's first 3-D game. The 'Great Video Game Crash' hits the industry hard, with the American assets being sold by 'Gulf and Western' to 'Bally Manufacturing Corp.' After the crash, Rosen partners up with Hayao Nakayama. along with several other Japanese investors, to buy Sega Enterprises for $38 million. Nakayama becomes chief executive, with Rosen beoming head of the American subsidiary. A new philosophy is deployed, stating that Sega would no longer focus too long on a single concept, due to technological lifespan.
Top/Centre: Astron Belt, 1983 (http://www.atarihq.com/coinops/laser/astbelt.html)Bottom: Subroc-3D arcade machine, 1983 (http://www.answers.com/topic/subroc-3d-2)
1984- Sega Enterprises bought through a partnership between the companies Japanese management and CSK, a Japanese conglomerate, forming Sega Enterprises Ltd, now a primarily Japanese company.
1985- Sega releases the 'Sega Mark III' in Japan, a backwards compatible console that followed on from the 'SG-1000' and 'SG-1000 II'. The console underwent mainly cosmetic changes to be re-sold as the 'Master System' in other markets. It's release date for North America was 1986. The upgraded version itself was released in Japan in 1987, the same year as it's European release.
1986- Sega of America developed to meet the once again rapidly expanding American market.
Late 1980's- A string of success' in both hardware and software through the late 80's propels the company to international prominence. Making them the world's second largest vendor of video game products. Sega stock soared.
1990- New, 16-bit console released under the name of the Sega 'Genesis' in America, and the Sega 'Mega-Drive' in Europe and Japan, selling over 29 million units to date. Success was influenced by the companies fast-paced, dynamic image, which appealed greatly to the youth of the 90's.
1991- 'Sonic the Hedgehog' becomes Sega's official mascot.
1994- Sega of America, in association with 'Time Warner' and 'TCI' releases 'Sega Channel'. A subscription based cable-network providing a service featuring over 50 games a month straight into homes nationwide through the subscribers cable box. The service was highly acclaimed.
1995- Release of the Sega 'Saturn'. While the console took off in Japan, it failed to gain momentum in both America and Europe, mainly due to competition from newcomers 'Sony' and established games giants 'Nintendo'. The poor reception to the console in the West was put down difficulty to program for the complicated hardware, as well as a lack of Western orientated games. It was upon the release of 'Final Fantasy VII' in 97 that the 'Playstation' began to overtake the 'Saturn' in terms of sales.
1999- Sega releases the 'Dreamcast' on 09/09/1999 in North America, and 25/11/1998 in Japan selling all 150,000 copies on it's first day. The 128-bit console was more powerful than existing consoles, came equipped with a built in modem for browsing the internet and online gaming, and when it was released became the fastest selling console of it's time. Despite it's success the console was constrained by the overwhelming success of Sony's 'Playstation 2', which managed to continue the momentum gained by the 'Playstation'. The 'Dreamcast' was Sega's last console.
2001- 30th January 2001, Sega officially announces that it will no longer produce hardware, stating instead that the company will focus entirely on 3rd party game development for multiple platforms, including handheld and wireless mediums.
