doing business as is a Japanese video game developer owned by Sega. Sonic Team is best known for its Sonic the Hedgehog series. Some Sonic Team games, such as the original Sonic games and Nights into Dreams (1996), are considered among the best video games ever made.
The initial team, formed in 1990, consisted of Sega developers including programmer Yuji Naka, artist Naoto Ohshima and level designer Hirokazu Yasuhara. The team took the name Sonic Team in 1991 with the release of their first game, Sonic the Hedgehog, for the Sega Genesis. It was a major success and contributed to millions of Genesis sales. The next Sonic games were developed by Naka and Yasuhara in America at Sega Technical Institute, while Ohshima worked on Sonic CD in Japan at CS3. Naka returned to Japan in 1994 to become the head of CS3, later renamed R&D No. 8. During this time, the division took on the Sonic Team brand but developed games that do not feature Sonic, such as Nights into Dreams (1996) and Burning Rangers (1998).
Following the release of Sonic Adventure in 1998, some Sonic Team staff moved to the United States to form Sonic Team USA and develop Sonic Adventure 2 (2001). With Sega's divestiture of its studios into separate companies, R&D No. 8 became SONICTEAM Ltd. in 2000, with Naka as CEO and Sonic Team USA as its subsidiary. Sega's financial troubles led to several major structural changes in the early 2000s; the United Game Artists studio was absorbed by Sonic Team in 2003, and Sonic Team USA became Sega Studios USA in 2004.
After Sammy Corporation purchased Sega in 2004, Sonic Team was reincorporated to become Sega's GE1 research and development department. Naka left Sega during the development of Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), and Sega Studios USA was merged back into Sonic Team in 2008. The following decade was marked by Sonic games of varying reception, with head of studio Takashi Iizuka acknowledging that Sonic Team had prioritized shipping over quality.
History
1990: Formation and Sonic the Hedgehog
thumb|right|upright|[[Yuji Naka, programmer for Sonic Team and later division president|alt=Picture of a man smiling.]]
In 1984, programmer Yuji Naka was hired into Sega's Consumer Development division. His first project was Girl's Garden, which he and Hiroshi Kawaguchi created as part of their training process. For his next game, Phantasy Star (1987) for the Master System, Naka created pseudo-3D animation effects. He met artist Naoto Ohshima while working on the game.
During the late 1980s and early 1990s, a rivalry formed between Sega and Nintendo due to the release of their 16-bit video game consoles: the Sega Genesis and the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Ohshima designed a blue hedgehog named Sonic,
The Sonic the Hedgehog project began with just Naka and Ohshima, Hirokazu Yasuhara joined to supervise Naka and Ohshima and develop levels, and became the lead designer. He satisfied Naka's request for a simple, one-button design by having Sonic do damage by jumping. Sonic the Hedgehog was released in 1991 and proved a major success, contributing to millions of sales of the Genesis. While Naka and Yasuhara developed Sonic the Hedgehog 2 at STI, Ohshima worked on Sonic CD, a prequel for the Sega CD add-on. Though Naka was not directly involved in the Sonic CD development, he exchanged design ideas with Ohshima.
Following the release of Sonic & Knuckles in 1994, Naka returned to Japan, having been offered a role as a producer. Naka was reunited with Ohshima and brought with him Takashi Iizuka, who had also worked with Naka's team at STI. Since Sonic Team was preoccupied with Nights into Dreams, it outsourced the development of the last Genesis Sonic game, Sonic 3D Blast (1996), to the British studio Traveller's Tales. Sonic Team developed bonus levels for a Saturn port, released in place of the canceled STI game Sonic X-treme. Yasuhara moved to London to assist the development of Sonic R (1997), The only other Saturn Sonic game was Sonic Jam (1997), a compilation of the Genesis games with a 3D overworld Sonic Team used to experiment with 3D Sonic gameplay.
The Saturn was a commercial failure, which some writers attributed to its lack of a major Sonic game. Sega shifted focus to the Dreamcast, which launched in Japan in 1998. It was sometimes referred to as AM8 or "Sega-AM8", as Sega's R&D department was named Sega Amusement Machine Research and Development (AM), though Sonic Team focused solely on home console games. Until 2000, media referred to Sonic Team as both R&D No. 8 and AM8.
1999–2003: Dreamcast, Sonic Team USA and formation into company
In 1999, shortly after the release of Sonic Adventure, twelve Sonic Team members relocated to San Francisco to establish Sonic Team USA, while others remained in Japan. Shortly afterward, a number of key employees—including Ohshima—left Sega to form a new studio, Artoon. Sonic Team achieved success in the arcade market in 1999 with the rhythm game Samba de Amigo, also released for the Dreamcast. They also began developing online games; in 1999, they released ChuChu Rocket!, a puzzle game that used the Dreamcast's online capabilities. In 2000, Sonic Team launched the role-playing game Phantasy Star Online to critical and commercial success. Naka credited the enduring success of Sonic to the character's appeal to children. Naka's goal was to appeal to the largest audience possible and to appeal to children.
Early in 2003, Sega president Hideki Sato and COO Tetsu Kamaya announced they were stepping down from their roles, with Sato being replaced by Hisao Oguchi, the head of Hitmaker. As part of Oguchi's restructuring plan, he announced his intention to consolidate Sega's studios into "four or five core operations". Sonic Team was financially solvent and absorbed United Game Artists, another Sega subsidiary led by Tetsuya Mizuguchi and known for the music games Space Channel 5 (1999) and Rez (2001). Sonic Team USA became Sega Studios USA, The team is still referred to as Sonic Team. Naka announced his departure on 8 May 2006 and formed a new studio, Prope, to focus on creating original games. After a series of poorly received Sonic releases, Sonic Team refocused on speed and more traditional side-scrolling in Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode I and II, Sonic Generations, and Sonic Colors, which all received better reviews. In 2015, Iizuka recognized in an interview with Polygon that Sonic Team had prioritized shipping games over quality, and had not had enough involvement in later third-party Sonic games, such as Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric. He hoped the Sonic Team logo would stand as a "mark of quality"; he planned to release quality games and expand the Sonic brand, while retaining the modern Sonic design. Sonic Team's first Sonic game exclusive to smartphones, Sonic Runners, was released in 2015. An endless runner, it was designed to have more replay value than other games in the genre. Sonic Runners received mixed reviews and was unprofitable, resulting in its discontinuation a year later.
In 2017, Sonic Team developed and released Sonic Forces, and oversaw the development of Sonic Mania by Christian Whitehead. Forces was aimed at a broad audience of young and adult players, while Mania was focused on fans of the original Genesis games. Mania became the best reviewed Sonic game in fifteen years following nearly two decades of mixed reviews for the franchise. Sonic Team also contributed to the 2019 reboot of Sakura Wars. Sonic Team is embedded within the second business division of Sega, which has more than 400 employees as of 2023. Over time, several development staff continue to get involved that did not work on Sonic or Sonic Team titles before. This includes staff that worked on Shinobi and Nightshade, sports game developers that worked on Virtua Striker and Let's Make a Soccer Team, and decades later in the 2020s, arcade game developers that worked on Initial D and Maimai.
Sonic Team USA / Sega Studios USA
Sonic Team USA, later Sega Studios USA, was a division of Sega and of Sonic Team while Sonic Team was a subsidiary company. It was founded when twelve Sonic Team members, including Takashi Iizuka, relocated to San Francisco, California, in 1999, and market studies in the United States, until they returned to Japan and merged back into Sonic Team in 2008.
Sonic Team USA translated Sonic Adventure and tested ChuChu Rocket! in America and was ported to the GameCube. The next Sonic Team USA project was Sonic Heroes (2003), the first Sonic game developed for multiple platforms. Sonic Team USA took a different approach with Heroes from the Sonic Adventure games, focusing on gameplay more similar to the Genesis games to which even casual gamers could adapt.
After SONICTEAM, Ltd. merged back into Sega in 2004, Sonic Team USA was renamed Sega Studios USA. a spin-off starring Shadow. Unlike previous games, Shadow the Hedgehog was targeted at older players and featured different gameplay styles, including the use of guns and different endings to the game. Shadow the Hedgehog was panned for its level design and mature themes, but was a commercial success, selling at least 1.59 million copies.
The final Sega Studios USA game was Nights: Journey of Dreams, the sequel to Nights into Dreams and the first Nights game since the cancellation of Air Nights in 2000. Iizuka felt it was important to retain the original game's concepts while developing new mechanics, and released it on the Wii, a more family-oriented console. Journey of Dreams was also designed to have a more European feel, in contrast to the Sonic games, which were more American. The sound and CGI were completed by Sonic Team in Japan, while Sega Studios USA handled the rest of the development for the 2007 release.
Sega Studios USA oversaw the development of Sonic Rivals (2006) and Sonic Rivals 2 (2007) by Backbone Entertainment. In 2008, Sega Studios USA merged with Sonic Team, The studio is best known for its Sonic the Hedgehog series of platform games, which account for the majority of Sonic Team's work; the 1991 release of Sonic the Hedgehog is considered one of the most important moments in video game history, as it propelled Genesis sales and displaced Nintendo as the leading game company. Sonic Team have also developed games including action games such as Nights into Dreams, Burning Rangers, and Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg, the online puzzle game ChuChu Rocket!, the online role-playing game Phantasy Star Online, and the music game Samba de Amigo. According to Sean Smith of Retro Gamer, few companies could claim to have released as many AAA games over such a long period, especially between 1991 and 2000. Iizuka said Sonic Team would be open to developing a third Nights game or a sequel to Knuckles' Chaotix (1995), if Sega were to commission them.
Sega and Sonic Team have been criticized for their handling of Sonic the Hedgehog after the beginning of the 3D era of video games. Edwin Evans-Thirlwell of Eurogamer described the 3D Sonic games as "20-odd years of slowly accumulating bullshit", and wrote that unlike Sonic's main competitor, Nintendo's Mario series, Sonic in 3D never had a "transcendental hit". Sega of America marketing director Al Nilsen and Sonic Mania developer Christian Whitehead said the large number of characters was problematic, with Whitehead describing them as "padding".<!-- Removed Kotaku source of little reporting value per WP:VG/S -->
See also
- Sega development studios
- Sega AM1
- Sega AM2
- Amusement Vision
- Smilebit