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Sonic Team

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Sonic Team
Company typeSubsidiary of SEGA
IndustryComputer and video game industry
Founded1990 (as Sonic Team Presents)
2000 (as Sonic Team Ltd.)
FounderYuji Naka
Naoto Oshima
Hirokazu Yasuhara
HeadquartersJapan Ota, Tokyo, Japan
Key people
Takashi Iizuka
Kazuyuki Hoshino
Yuji Uekawa
Sachiko Kawamura
Yoshihisa Hashimoto
Websitehttp://www.sonicteam.com

Sonic Team (ソニックチーム, Sonikku Chīmu) is a Japanese computer and video game developer established in Ota, Tokyo, Japan in 1990, originally known as Sega AM8. The Japan-based division is also known as G.E. Department Global Entertainment. The studio has collaborated with several In-House Japanese studios as well as all other American studios such as STI and Visual Concepts.

History of Sonic Team

In 1990, Sega asked one of their departments to create a game with a character that was popular enough to rival Nintendo's Mario. What the group came up with was a speedy platformer with a new, fresh character called Sonic the Hedgehog. In 1991 AM8 took its name from its phenomenally successful Sonic the Hedgehog series and became Sonic Team. Sonic Team was headed by the famed video game designer and producer Yuji Naka. Under his leadership Sonic Team has become a creative powerhouse in the video game industry.

1992

Despite the extreme popularity of Sonic the Hedgehog, Yuji Naka grew dissatisfied with Sega of Japan's policies and so moved to Sega's U.S. branch, Sega Technical Institute, headed by Mark Cerny. Due to most of Sonic Team's key members moving to the Western branch, Sega Technical Institute got the job to handle Sonic's Mega Drive sequels. The American developers collaborated with Sonic Team in the development of Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Most of the STI staff worked on the zone art and special stages, while most of Sonic Team worked on the level designs and the programming. However, due to most of the Sonic Team staff lacking the ability to speak English, there was trouble with language barriers. The STI staff also weren't very experienced with strict Japanese game development philosophy. Most likely this was because all of the STI staff were new to the game industry. Sonic Team members also usually worked very late nights and usually slept under their desks in order to perfectly achieve Yuji Naka's guidelines. So after the completion of Sonic 2, Yuji Naka made the final decision to only allow the Japanese members in the core development team to work on Sonic 3 & Knuckles.

1993 - 1998

After the completion of Sonic 3 and Knuckles, Yuji Naka and the Sonic Team name finally became respected by Sega. Naka was even offered the role of producer at Sega of Japan. With the company's name revived, Sonic Team started developing different franchises, such as Nights into Dreams..., Burning Rangers, ChuChu Rocket!, Samba de Amigo, and Phantasy Star Online. The joint creator of Sonic, Naoto Oshima, left Sonic Team to form his own studio, Artoon.

1999

Sonic Team's United States division, Sonic Team USA (Sega Studio USA), was founded in 1999 and ran up until early 2008, when Takashi Iizuka and a group of Sonic Team members decided to stay in America after testing the international releases for Sonic Adventure and ChuChu Rocket! to make games that appealed to the western market, like Sonic Adventure 2. Sonic Team USA was established in #650-650 Townsend Street San Francisco, California 94103-4908, within the same building Sega of America resided in.[1]

2000 - 2006

During the transitional phase of Sega dropping out of the console race to concentrate on software and game development, all of its main departments were separated from the main company and established on semi-autonomous subsidiaries. In 2000, Sonic Team officially became Sonic Team Ltd. In 2002, The Another creator of Sonic, Hirokazu Yasuhara, left Sonic Team when he moved to Naughty Dog. Also during this phase, United Game Artists (formerly Sega AM9) merged with Sonic Team Japan in 2003 to start the Sonic Riders series. In 2004, Sega acquired Sega Sammy Holdings. Due to this new establishment company, all of Sega's subsidiary divisions were put back into their previous departments, including Sonic Team. Sonic Team once more became an internal division of Sega after being spun off as a second-party developer in 2000. The company name of Sonic Team USA is also changed to Sega Studio USA. Unlike most of the other divisions, Sonic Team still retains its internal structure and name.[2] On May 8, 2006, Naka left the group with ten other members of Sonic Team to establish an independent game developer, Prope.

Supervision and Criticism

Contrary to popular belief, most of the portable Sonic games released since 1999 were not developed by Sonic Team. Sonic Rush, Sonic Rush Adventure, Sonic Battle, Sonic the Hedgehog Pocket Adventure, Sonic Advance, Sonic Advance 2, and Sonic Advance 3 were developed by Dimps, a Japanese developer. Sonic Rivals, and Sonic Rivals 2 were developed by Backbone Entertainment, a Canadian developer. Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood was developed by BioWare. Shortly after the merger with Sammy Holdings, a great deal of staff were moved in and out of Sonic Team. The loss of the "original" Sonic Team is believed to be responsible for the perceived decline in quality of Sonic the Hedgehog games.

Game Designers

Game Designer Division's Head by Yuji Naka Untli 2006. now Head by Takashi Iizuka.

Artists & Illustrators

Art Division's head by Naoto Ohshima Untli 1999. now headed by Sachiko Kawamura & Yuji Uekawa.

Music Composers

Sonic Team is also notable for achieving popular music in their games. There are a number of popular composers that have stuck with the developer for a long time, and are well known around the fanbase:

Sega Studio USA (Sonic Team USA)

Sonic Team
IndustryComputer and video game industry
Founded1999
Defunct2008
FateAbsorbed back into Japanese headquarters
HeadquartersUnited States San Francisco, California
Key people
Takashi Iizuka
Kazuyuki Hoshino
Jun Senoue
Eitaro Toyoda
OwnerSega Corporation
Number of employees
24-25 (2007)
Websitehttp://www.sonicteam.com

Sega Studio USA was the United States division of Sonic Team located in San Francisco, California. The division was formed in 1999 when a group of Sonic Team decided to move to America to make international releases for a few games, and so that they could develop games to receive feedback from the Western Market. They had a few months to polish up Sonic Adventure's international release due to the worry of the western market reacting negatively to the rushed outcome of the game's original Japanese release. Sonic Adventure had a big milesone due to the deadline the game had so it could be launched with the Dreamcast's release. All of the team members that worked there were all Japanese, with the exception of Brad Wagner (Artist) who got hired at the studio during the development of Shadow the Hedgehog.[3] The division first worked on ChuChu Rocket! and Sonic Adventure's international release. In 2005, the division changed their official name to Sega Studio USA for unknown reasons.

History

The US branch's first game was the 2001 Dreamcast game Sonic Adventure 2. Instead of using the same engine Sonic Adventure used, the programmers developed an entirely new and much more sophisticated engine. All of the game mechanics from Sonic Adventure were completely re-tooled from the ground up. The newly established Sonic Team USA was so influenced by their new San Francisco location, that the level designers of the game, Takashi Iizuka and Eitaro Toyoda, designed some of the levels, such as the City Escape, Mission Street, Radical Highway, Route 101, and Route 280 levels as references to major San Francisco locations. The City Escape level resembles the steep, downhill roads of the city. The Route 101 and Route 280 levels were named after actual highways within the surrounding bay area. The Mission Street level in the game was actually named and inspired after a famous street in the city, while the Radical Highway level resembles the famous Golden Gate Bridge. The game designers decided to get rid of the Adventure Fields from Sonic Adventure, in order to keep the action and game flow consistent. Also, at the time, Sonic Team USA made a partnership with Soap to advertise their shoe products in the game. Unfortunately, the partnership didn't last, as Soap soon stopped producing their shoe products. Later they were bought by another company called In-Stride, and began developing other products.

2002

Sonic Team USA later ported the game to the GameCube after the Dreamcast was discontinued. They had 6 months to polish up and refine the game for the GameCube. The port was renamed Sonic Adventure 2 Battle, after some multiplayer mode enhancements. The programmers and artists even added in minor special effects, such as rain in White Jungle, redesigned some textures completely, fixed some level design to establish better flow, improved the draw distance and graphic field activity, fixed a few cutscene hiccups, added in an extra level of sensitivity for the Emerald radar in the treasure hunting levels, included in some Chao Garden extras, and added in extra level geometry such as trees. Sonic Adventure 2 Battle was the only third party game on the GameCube to sell over one million copies in the United States alone.[4] The game is also considered to be the studio's most popular game by fans, and one of the most popular 3D Sonic games next to Sonic Adventure, noting that it is the only 3D Sonic game in 2002 aside from Sonic Adventure.

2003-2004

Their next project was Sonic Heroes. The team wanted to port this game on all platforms to achieve better sales and broaden the fanbase, so they decided to use RenderWare as a game engine to make programming the game on multiple consoles a lot easier, due to the studio's lack of experience developing for the Playstation 2. Thus, the team had to sacrifice a certain amount of technical capabilities. The game was released on the GameCube, PlayStation 2, Xbox, and PC CD-ROM. Instead of designing levels that relied on American influence, the team decided to design the concept of the game so that it would stay closer to the roots of the 2D Sonic games. This meant removing contact with any humans in the game, designing levels that didn't resemble modern day cities or environments, and developing a sparser story. Sonic Heroes actually went on to become the best-selling 3D Sonic game. Most likely because it was the first Sonic game to debut on the Playstation 2 and Xbox. The concept on team-based gameplay was actually going to be used in future Sonic games, but due to numerous fan complaints about the game design, the idea was cancelled. Some hardcore fans of the Sonic Adventure titles were disappointed on how different the presentation and gameplay mechanics for Sonic Heroes turned out. However, Takashi Iizuka has stated that he didn't want to make this another Sonic Adventure title due to his worry of only core gamers picking this up. He wanted to create a game for general users to adapt to easily in mind.[5]

2005

After Sonic Heroes, Sonic Team USA decided to change their official name to Sega Studio USA. It is unknown whether this was just decided on due to a new department the team moved into, or whether it had to do with the team wanting a new name. Sega Studio USA went on to make their next multiplatform game, Shadow the Hedgehog, using the studio's own built game engine rather than using RenderWare technology again. Still, due to the company's lack of experience developing for the PS2 and Xbox, without the advantage of using the RenderWare engine, some of the game engine quality wasn't as well-balanced as hoped. It seems that most of the work that was put into building the game engine, was used to take advantage of better visual effects. The game was intended to clear up Shadow's mysterious back story, while also adding in a new gameplay perspective by including firearms and vehicles into the game. The game designers also wanted to incorporate the "choose your own path" concept that they scrapped during the mid-development of Sonic Adventure 2 due to disagreements in the game flow. According to an IGN interview with Takashi Iizuka, he stated that his team referenced some popular films for the game. "I can, however, say that we did reference films like Underworld, Constantine and even Terminator series while creating concept art for Shadow. These movies and more were used to create the image of what we thought Shadow and his world would be."[6] The game was released on the Gamecube, Playstation 2, and Xbox. Despite all of the poor critical reaction from critics and part of the fanbase, the game has been able to sell surprisingly well, and has sold an excess of a million copies. This helped increase Sega's profits in 2006.[7] As with Sonic Heroes, the game was also criticized of how it ran on the PlayStation 2 due to framerate drops and longer load times. Takashi Iizuka was actually planning on making Shadow the Hedgehog a game series. But due to the poor critical reaction, the idea was scrapped. The game is still mixed with fan's opinions, with some liking the concept, while others despised it. Sega Studio USA was notable for including references to past Sonic Team games that some of the members at the studio worked on, into Shadow the Hedgehog. During the battle with Black Bull after you finish Lethal Highway, the 650 Townsend Center building makes a cameo appearance as the center building within the battle arena, which happens to be the building where Sega Studio USA resided in. The building also makes numerous cameos in the Westopolis and Central City levels. Also, since Takashi Iizuka worked on Sonic 3 and Knuckles as a designer, he referenced a cameo to the spinning drums from Carnival Night Zone into the Circus Park level. Due to Iizuka's love for the original NiGHTS into Dreams, billboards of the game can be seen in one of the stages he designed called Lethal Highway. One of the levels in Shadow the Hedgehog, Circus Park, was named after one of the areas in the obscure Sonic Team game, Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg. One of the special weapons in the game, the Vacuum Gun, was inspired and designed off of the unique look from Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg as well.

2006-2007

Members of Sega Studio USA also supervised and designed the concept for Sonic Rivals and Sonic Rivals 2, though the actual development of the games was done by Backbone Entertainment. To help Backbone with the game concept, Iizuka and his team wanted to re-create the 2D Sonic gameplay experience and combine the advanced technical capabilities the PSP had to offer to develop a fresh, original gameplay experience. Sega Studio USA helped out with character artwork, scenario writing, and level design ideas.

Takashi Iizuka and his team finally got the green light to make a new Nights game when Sonic Team's Japan departments started handling the 3D Sonic franchise, starting with Sonic Riders and Sonic the Hedgehog 2006. During the November shipment of Shadow the Hedgehog, Iizuka started right away from there and spent six months coming up with the game design without thinking or knowing which platform the game would be suitable for. The team found out that they could make the gameplay stand-out after researching the Wii's new control scheme and decided the Wii was the best choice for the game because of its family friendly library of games. The platform was also suitable for this type of game due to the game's story being about the importance of family. The team was also interested with the online features the platform had to offer. They have currently finished working on the sequel titled, Nights: Journey of Dreams. They have, again, designed a new game engine specifically for this type of game, rather than borrow the Sonic and the Secret Rings engine. Also because they didn't have to carry the burden of developing this game for other platforms, like they did with Sonic Heroes, and Shadow the Hedgehog, they were able to produce a more well-polished game experience. According to the back of the game case, the game uses PhysX as part of the games engine. The team also decided to not include American influence in the game like some of the modern 3D sonic games do. Instead they chose for a more European influence. Eitaro Toyoda moved back to Sonic Team to work on Sonic and the Secret Rings as a game designer.

2008

According to a Q&A with Jun Senoue, one of the questions he answered from a fan was why he moved back to Japan. He answered by saying, "No more Sonic Team USA". It's believed after Sega of America moved to a new building after their lease ran out, Sega Studio USA got absorbed back into the Japan division. It's unknown whether all of the members moved back to Japan. Now At the head of the development team is Takashi Iizuka.

Notable Staff

The division was headed by Takashi Iizuka. Notable Sonic Team members that have stuck with the U.S. branch from Sonic Adventure 2 to NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams include:

Art Director: Kazuyuki Hoshino

Lead Programmer: Takeshi Sakakibara

Senior Programmer: Tomoyuki Naito

Music Composer(s): Jun Senoue

Lead Field Artist: Hiroshi Nishiyama

Field Artist(s): Michikazu Tamamura, Daizo Kinoshita, Takahiro Kudo

Miscellaneous: Atsushi Saito (Animation), Nobuhiko Honda (Character Design)

Location

The team resided on the sixth floor inside the Townsend Center building (650 Townsend Street, Suite 650, San Francisco,California), along with Sega of America. Other tenants that reside in the building include G4, Aplix Corporation, Level 3 Communications, and NaviSite, Inc. The Townsend Center building is one of the largest in San Francisco, with over 670,000 rentable square feet. The building is located within the vibrant SOMA neighborhood. It is six floors high with a street lobby and allows for rooftop parking access. The building allows up to 941 parking spaces. Inside, the building offers viewers to a beautiful lobby filled with murals, ample elevators, high-level security, and retail services (Cafe, Union Bank of California, Bank of America ATM, and Poggenpohl Kitchens.) The building even offers free shuttle services to other hubs within the city, and loading docks for the building's tenants.[1]

United Game Artists

AM Annex was a first-party video game development studio for Sega of Japan. In 2000, Sega-AM9 (as they were later called) became United Game Artists or (UGA) when Sega reorganized its studios to become second-party developer. They released three games for the Sega Dreamcast before they were merged with Sonic Team Japan in 2003. They are more well known for their work on Space Channel 5, Rez and the Sonic Riders series.

The United Game Artists Logo

Notable Staff

Sega Technical Institute

File:STI Logo.png
The Sega Technical Institute Logo

The Sega Technical Institute was a video game development division of Sega based in the United States, unlike the AM divisions which were based in Japan.

STI was at one time an elite organization within Sega of America that developed well-received games such as Kid Chameleon, Comix Zone, The Ooze and Die Hard Arcade (this one being the result of a team-up between STI and successful arcade game developers AM1).

Although the original Sonic the Hedgehog was developed in Japan by Sonic Team, the Sega Technical Institute held the principal responsibility for Sonic the Hedgehog 2, assisted by members of Japanese development teams including several members of Sonic Team such as Yuji Naka and Hirokazu Yasuhara. However, only the Japanese members of STI developed Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and Sonic & Knuckles along with Sonic Team, and the American developers worked on Sonic Spinball instead. [1]

STI disbanded after the cancellation of Sonic X-treme. Some of the key members currently work for Luxoflux and Microsoft.

Notable staff

Video Game History

Games developed by Sonic Team (Japan)

Games developed by Sega Studio USA (Sonic Team USA)

Games developed at Sega Technical Institute

Handheld games supervised by Sonic Team

Console games supervised by Sonic Team

Games supervised by Sega Studio USA (Sonic Team USA)

Sonic Team compilations

Games developed in co-operation with Sonic Team

Games developed by United Games Artists

See also

References

  1. ^ a b 650 Townsend Center: San Francisco Commercial Real Estate Listing
  2. ^ Sonic Team
  3. ^ Game Credits for Shadow the Hedgehog
  4. ^ "US Platinum Video Game Chart". The Magic Box. Retrieved August 13. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); External link in |work= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  5. ^ INTERVIEW: Nights Watchman : Next Generation - Interactive Entertainment Today, Video Game and Industry News - Home of Edge Online
  6. ^ Shadow the Hedgehog IGN Interview
  7. ^ Sega Sammy reports 31 per cent rise in profits // GamesIndustry.biz


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