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Field Artist(s):
Field Artist(s):
Michikazu Tamamura,(ノ*゜▽゜*)ニパパパ Daizo Kinoshita, Takahiro Kudo
Michikazu Tamamura, Daizo Kinoshita, Takahiro Kudo
Miscellaneous:
Miscellaneous:

Revision as of 21:51, 23 March 2008

Sonic Team
IndustryComputer and video game industry
Founded1988
HeadquartersJapan Ota, Tokyo, Japan
Key people
Shun Nakamura
Yojiro Ogawa
OwnerSega Corporation
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 1988, originally known as Sega AM8. The Japanese division is also known as G.E. Department 1 (Global Entertainment).

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. The result with 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. Despite the extreme popularity of the game, 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 some of Sonic Team's key members moving to the Western branch, Sega Technical Institute got the job to handle Sonic's Mega Drive sequels. 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.

Sonic Team's United States division, Sonic Team USA, was founded in 1999 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's United States branch is established in #650-650 Townsend Street San Francisco, California 94103-4908, inside the same building Sega of America resides in.[1]

During the transistional 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 SONICTEAM Ltd. 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.

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.

In Super Smash Bros. Brawl The Sonic Team logo makes an appearance as Sonic's symbol.

Fans have been angered at the recent quality of Sonic Team's games, and partly blame Sammy Holdings as a cause.

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:

  • Fumie Kumatani
  • Kenichi Tokoi
  • Hideaki Kobayashi
  • Tomonori Sawada
  • Naofumi Hataya- (popular from his work on Sonic CD)
  • Mariko Nanba
  • Jun Senoue- (works with Sonic Team USA)
  • Crush 40
  • Runblebee- (works with Kenichi Tokoi)

Sega Studio USA (Sonic Team USA)

Sega Studio USA (Sonic Team USA)
IndustryComputer and video game industry
Founded1999
HeadquartersUnited States San Francisco, California
Key people
Takashi Iizuka
Kazuyuki Hoshino
OwnerSega Corporation
Number of employees
24 as of 2007
Websitehttp://www.sonicteam.com

Sega Studio USA is 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 can develop games to receive feedback from the Western Market. All of the team members that work there are of course Japanese, with the exception of Brad Wagner(Artist).[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, after Sega acquired Sammy Holdings, for unknown reasons.

History

The company's first game they developed was the 2001 Dreamcast game Sonic Adventure 2. 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, with the rest of the field artists, 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.

Sonic Team USA later ported the game to the GameCube after the Dreamcast was discontinued. 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, redesigned some textures completely, fixed a few cutscene hiccups, 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.

Their next project was Sonic Heroes. The team wanted to port this game on all platforms to achieve better sales, so they decided to use RenderWare as a game engine to make programming the game on multiple consoles a lot easier, due to the company'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 due to the fact that 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]

After Sonic Heroes, Sonic Team 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 quality suffered. 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 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.[6] 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. Also, during the battle with Black Bull after you finish Lethal Highway, Sega of America / 650 Townsend Center makes a cameo appearance as the center building within the battle arena, which happens to be the building where Sega Studio USA resides in.

Members of Sonic Team 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 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 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 due to the fact that they didn't have to carry the burden of developing the game for other platforms, 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 the some of the modern 3D sonic games do. Instead they have chosen for a more European influence.

Notable Staff

The division is headed by Takashi Iizuka. Notable Sonic Team members that have stuck with the U.S. branch since Sonic Adventure 2 include:

Art Director: Kazuyuki Hoshino (Was the original character designer for Sonic CD.)

Lead Programmer: Takeshi Sakakibara

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 (Motion Design), Nobuhiko Honda (Character Design), Shiroh Maekawa (Development Support)

Location

The team resides 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.[7]

Sonic Team's UGA Division

Sega AM9 was a first-party video game development studio for Sega. In 2000 AM9 became United Games 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. Once they merged, they started on the Sonic Riders series.

Notable Staff

Video Game History

Games developed by Sonic Team (Japan)

Games developed by Sega Studio USA (Sonic Team USA)

Games supervised by Sega Studio USA (Sonic Team USA)

Games developed by Sega Technical Institute and Sonic Team

Handheld games supervised by Sonic Team

Sonic Team compilations

Games developed in co-operation with Sonic Team

Games developed by AM9

Games developed by United Games Artists

Games developed by former UGA staff at Sonic Team

References

  1. ^ http://www.townsendcenter.com/
  2. ^ http://ghz.emulationzone.org/team.html
  3. ^ http://www.mobygames.com/game/gamecube/shadow-the-hedgehog/credits
  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. ^ http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=8490&Itemid=2
  6. ^ http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=17074
  7. ^ http://www.townsendcenter.com/

See also