The history of Sega was started back to Standard Games in 1940 and Service Games of Japan in the 1950’s. In 1940 Standard Games (later Service Games) was founded in Honolulu, Hawaii, United States by Marty Bromley, Irving Bromberg and James Humpert to produced coin-operated amusements for American servicemen on military bases.

In April 1954, David Rosen, an American officer in Japan started Rosen Enterprises Ltd. after the Korean War. He began importing, selling, renting and maintaining commercial amusement equipment through his company, Service Games Japan Co.Ltd, established in 1957.

In June 1960, Nihon Goraku Bussan Co.Ltd and Nihon Kikai Seizo Co.Ltd were established. Nihon Goraku Bussan Co. Ltd went on to become SEGA Corporation. In 1965, Rosen Enterprises, Ltd., which had been operating amusement arcades, was merged and renamed Sega Enterprises, Ltd. 

The name SEGA is taken from the word “Service” and “Games”. According to Rosen, “Sega” was the brand that Nihon Goraku Bussan was using, and that name was chosen to name the company with the most recognized name upon the merger, while the word “Enterprises” came from Rosen Enterprises.

Sega began researching and developing video games technology sometime in the late 1970’s. They realized that this new technology had great future. They quickly saw they could move on from engineering and crafting complicated slot machines by producing this new type of games.

The boom of video games in the early 1980’s was the perfect time for Sega to take advantage of the situation. They quickly become popular in Japan for home and arcade game machine. But their Japanese counterpart, Nintendo took the US market by storm with their legendary game : Mario Bros.

Sega reacted and they introduced a new game character, Sonic the Hedgehog in 1991. The game was a big success worldwide and Sonic is one of the best selling video game franchises in history. Sonic the Hedgehog has been Sega’s mascot since then. The sonic;s blue skin was chosen to match Sega’s cobalt blue logo. His shoes were a concept inspired by Michael Jackson’s boots and his Personality was based on Bill Clinton’s “can do” attitude.

To compete with Nintendo, Sega was more open to new types of games than its rival, but still controlled the approval process for third-party games and charged high prices for cartridge manufacturing.

The popular game consoles from Sega are the Sega Genesis, Sega Saturn and Sega Dreamcast. Sega Genesis was introduced in 1989. Games for Sega Genesis including Mystic Defender and Tommy Lassorda Baseball. With this console Sega was able to outsell Nintendo four Christmas season in a row. There was even Mega CD, an add on for the Genesis.

Sega saturn was released in Japan on November 22, 1994 and in the US on May 11, 1995. It is a 32-bit fifth generation console that had a built-in CD-ROM unit. It came in direct challenge with Sony’s Playstation 1 at the time and lost in global sales. Sega Dreamcast was launched in Japan on November 27, 1998. It was the company’s last video game console.

Today Sega Corporation headquarter is located in Shinagawa, Tokyo. The international branches, Sega of America and Europe are headquartered in Irvine California (US) and London (UK).