The Japanese multination Sega Corporation is a video game developer, publisher and hardware development company that between the years 1983 and 2001 where one of the major players in the development and manufacture of home video game consoles. Since 2001 they have primarily focused on providing software as a third party developer. Sega are known for producing multimillion selling game franchise such as Sonic the Hedgehog, Yakuza, Virtua Fighter and Total War.
Sega originally found success as an arcade games machine producer before moving into the home console market producing consoles such as the Sega Master System, the Megadrive (also known as the Genesis) which at one point held 65% of the American market, the Sega Saturn (Sega’s first CD console) and finally the Dreamcast which proved to be Sega’s final console. While being ultimately unsuccessful it included features, such as its 56k modem that allowed online multiplayer gaming, that were forerunners some of the key features of modern gaming. The Dreamcast also featured the first console based MMORPG (Massively multiplayer online role-playing game) Quake 3 Arena and Alien Front Online which was the first console game to include online voice chat.
Sega has since produced games across a range of platforms including several blockbuster Sonic games for the Wii, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Sega has since begun an exclusive relationship with Nintendo for upcoming Sonic games, which have achieved notable success on the Wii and Wii U consoles.