# Sega

> Sega, short for Service Games, is a Japanese video game developer and publisher that made consoles from the SG-1000 in 1983 to the Dreamcast.

Web page: https://emulationking.com/sega/
Page updated: 2026-09-26

Sega, whose name is short for Service Games, is a Japanese video game publisher, developer and former hardware maker headquartered in Tokyo.

The company's roots go back to 1940, when it began distributing coin-operated games, jukeboxes and slot machines. It later went on to supply these machines to American military bases in Japan.

As it grew, Sega moved from importing machines to manufacturing them and began releasing its own arcade games. By 1979, during the arcade boom, Sega's revenue had passed $100 million.

In 1982 Sega's revenue passed $214 million, and it released its first 3D game. The video game crash that followed cut its revenue to $136 million, and soon afterwards Sega was bought for $38 million by a group of investors led by David Rosen, Robert Deith and Hayao Nakayama.

Sega released its first home console, the SG-1000, in 1983, followed by the Master System, Genesis (Mega Drive), Saturn and Dreamcast. Its consoles had both successes and failures, and it left the hardware market in 2001. During this time Nakayama stepped down and Isao Okawa took over.

By 2002 Sega had made losses for five years in a row. Before his death in 2001, Okawa gave the company around $700 million of his personal fortune.

Planned deals and mergers fell through as the company tried to recover. In 2003 Sammy bought the 22% stake held by CSK, and Sammy's chairman, Hajime Satomi, became Sega's CEO. In 2004 Sammy bought a controlling share of Sega for $1.1 billion, and the two companies merged as Sega Sammy Holdings.

Sega has since returned to profit as a software publisher, with franchises such as Sonic the Hedgehog released on every major console.

## Consoles

- [SEGA 32X](https://emulationking.com/sega/32x/index.md): The SEGA 32X is a 1994 add-on that plugged into the Genesis cartridge slot and added two 32-bit SH-2 processors. It had a short life and 40 games.
- [SEGA Dreamcast](https://emulationking.com/sega/dreamcast/index.md): The Sega Dreamcast, released in 1998, was Sega's last console. Poor sales cut its life short, but its strong library is now well emulated.
- [SEGA Saturn](https://emulationking.com/sega/saturn/index.md): The Sega Saturn is Sega's fifth-generation console, released in 1994. It did well in Japan but came a distant third to the PlayStation and Nintendo 64.
- [SEGA Pico](https://emulationking.com/sega/pico/index.md): The SEGA Pico is an educational console for young children, released in 1993. Its games came as picture books, read with a pen on a touch pad.
- [SEGA CD / Mega CD](https://emulationking.com/sega/segacd/index.md): The SEGA CD, called the Mega CD outside North America, is a CD-ROM add-on for the Genesis released in 1991, with its own 68000 processor.
- [SEGA Game Gear](https://emulationking.com/sega/gamegear/index.md): The SEGA Game Gear is a colour handheld from 1990 built on Master System hardware. It had a backlit screen and competed with Nintendo's Game Boy.
- [SEGA Genesis](https://emulationking.com/sega/genesis/index.md): The Sega Genesis, known as the Mega Drive outside North America, is Sega's 16-bit console, with a library of over 900 games including Sonic the Hedgehog.
- [SEGA Master System](https://emulationking.com/sega/mastersystem/index.md): The Sega Master System is Sega's 8-bit console, first released in Japan in 1985 as the Mark III. It was home to Alex Kidd and an 8-bit Sonic.
- [SG-1000](https://emulationking.com/sega/sg-1000/index.md): The SG-1000 was Sega's first home video game console, released in 1983. It was not a big success, but its lessons helped shape the Sega Master System.