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 The Early Years Originally formed in 1951 under the name Rosen Enterprises (named after founder David Rosen) and based in Japan (where David Rosen lived after World War II's end), the company we now know as Sega started out as an art exporter. As business progressed and the company expanded, Rosen Enterprises began importing as well as exporting. The company began importing photo booths from America by the late '50s, as well as coin-operated games - its first, but by no means last, contact with the video game industry.
Things were going very well for Rosen Enterprises, which brought about the acquisition of a jukebox manufacturing company. Rosen Enterprises then merged with the newly acquired company. A rename was in order - a contraction of Service Games was the chosen title. In other words: Sega. Soon after the administrative changes, Sega began producing its own coin-op titles, which were going up against the already established American companies from which Rosen had been buying when he was in the import business. After about five years of this, Gulf & Western purchased Sega, and the Sega name remained intact.
Sega opened up new possibilities in the late '70s by expanding from just coin-op game development to creating both arcade and home console games. Primitive machines such as the Atari 2600 and ColecoVision were the systems for which Sega started developing. Sega made a small name for itself through the minor success of its Turbo, Zaxxon, and Frogger games. Sega's success prompted the opening of an American division - Sega Enterprises - in the early '80s. This section of the company primarily dealt with the development of console software. However, Sega Enterprises was sold to Bally (a large pinball and arcade producer) in 1983. Soon after this, the rest of Sega - which then consisted wholly of Sega of Japan - was sold to an outside group of investors. After this purchase, Sega as a whole, which was still doing what it had been before the changes, officially became Sega Enterprises Ltd. From then on, Sega earned greater recognition in the West and became more and more successful. Arcade hits Out Run, Shinobi, and After Burner were the reasons for this movement, as well as another creation. In the early '80s, Sega expanded yet again. Where to? Read on...
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