Sega is a Japanese video game company and subsidiary of Sega Sammy Holdings headquartered in Tokyo. It produces several List of best-selling video game franchises, multi-million-selling game franchises for arcade game, arcades and video game cons ...

is a

video game A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual fe ...

developer,

publisher Publishing is the activities of making information, literature, music, software, and other content, physical or digital, available to the public for sale or free of charge. Traditionally, the term publishing refers to the creation and distribu ...

, and hardware development company headquartered in

Tokyo Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

, with multiple offices around the world. The company's involvement in the

arcade game An arcade game or coin-op game is a coin-operated entertainment machine typically installed in public businesses such as restaurants, bars and amusement arcades. Most arcade games are presented as primarily game of skill, games of skill and in ...

industry began as a Japan-based distributor of coin-operated machines, including

pinball Pinball games are a family of games in which a ball is propelled into a specially designed table where it bounces off various obstacles, scoring points either en route or when it comes to rest. Historically the board was studded with nails call ...

games and jukeboxes. Sega imported second-hand machines that required frequent maintenance. This necessitated the construction of replacement guns, flippers, and other parts for the machines. According to former Sega director Akira Nagai, this is what led to the company into developing their own games.
Translation
by Shmuplations. ). Sega released '' Pong-Tron'', its first video-based game, in 1973.Horowitz 2018, pp. 14-16 The company prospered from the arcade game boom of the late 1970s, with revenues climbing to over million by 1979. Nagai has stated that ''

Hang-On is an arcade racing game released by Sega in 1985 and later ported to the Master System. In the game, the player controls a motorcycle against time and other computer-controlled bikes. It was one of the first arcade games to use 16-bit computi ...

'' and '' Out Run'' helped to pull the arcade game market out of the 1983 downturn and created new genres of video games. In terms of arcades, Sega is the world's most prolific arcade game producer, having developed more than 500 games, 70 franchises, and 20

arcade system board An arcade video game is an arcade game that takes player input from its controls, processes it through electrical or computerized components, and displays output to an electronic monitor or similar display. All arcade video games are coin-opera ...

s since 1981. It has been recognized by

Guinness World Records ''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a British reference book published annually, list ...

for this achievement. The following list comprises the various arcade system boards developed and used by Sega in their arcade games.

Arcade system boards

Additional arcade hardware

Sega has developed and released additional arcade games that use technology other than their dedicated arcade system boards. The first arcade game manufactured by Sega was ''Periscope'', an

electromechanical Electromechanics combine processes and procedures drawn from electrical engineering and mechanical engineering. Electromechanics focus on the interaction of electrical and mechanical systems as a whole and how the two systems interact with each ...

game. This was followed by ''Missile'' in 1969.Horowitz 2018, pp. 8-13 Subsequent video-based games such as '' Pong-Tron'' (1973), '' Fonz'' (1976), and ''Monaco GP'' (1979) used discrete logic boards without a CPU microprocessor. '' Frogger'' (1981) used a system powered by two Z80 CPU microprocessors. Some titles, such as '' Zaxxon'' (1982) were developed externally from Sega, a practice that was not uncommon at the time.Horowitz 2018, pp. 48-50

References

{{Bandai Namco Hardware

Sega arcade system boards

Arcade system boards

Additional arcade hardware

See also

References