Sega Electronics
From Sega Retro
- Not to be confused with Gremlin Graphics.
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| Sega Electronics | ||||
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| Founded: 1973 | ||||
| Defunct: 1983 | ||||
| Merged into: Sega Enterprises, Inc. (1978-09-29[1]) | ||||
Headquarters:
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Gremlin Industries, Inc., also known Sega Electronics, was an American arcade developer and manufacturer which was purchased by Sega Enterprises in 1978.[1]
Contents
History
Gremlin Industries was an American arcade game developer and manufacturer who manufactured wall games in the early 1970s before switching to video games starting 1976. They were purchased by Sega Enterprises, Inc. in 1978[1], and started releasing games with joint branding, first as Gremlin/Sega, then as Sega/Gremlin.
Sega/Gremlin changed their name to Sega Electronics in late 1982[3][4] (according to chairman David Rosen, the combined name was "a bit awkward"[5]). Around which time they also started producing games for home systems, attempting to bring Paramount brands to home consoles (Star Trek: Strategic Operations Simulator and Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom being the two surviving examples, though many more were planned).
The assets of Sega Electronics was sold to Bally Midway after the summer of 1983 for an undisclosed price[6], primarily for the LaserDisc technology powering Astron Belt. Home video games would continue to be sold under the Sega brand (including some of Midway's back catalogue, such as Tapper and Spy Hunter), but all arcade efforts would be badged as Bally Midway games. This would include games made by Sega in Japan for a short period (though Sega's Japanese business was otherwise unaffected by the sale)[6].
As part of the agreement, Bally held the first refusal rights on all Sega-developed games, however this expired in March 1985, allowing Sega to directly market its games again with a newly established company, Sega Enterprises USA.
Sega Electronics technically still exists; it was renamed "Ages Electronics Inc." after Sega became a subsidiary of CSK in 1984, and became a shell company of Gulf+Western. It has survived buy-outs and acquisitions and is currently part of the Paramount Global empire, though has not been involved in video games since 1983.
Softography
Discrete logic arcade
VIC Dual
- Safari (1977) (as Gremlin Industries)
- Depthcharge (1977) (as Gremlin Industries)
- Deep Scan (1979) (as Gremlin/Sega)
- Head On (1979) (as Sega/Gremlin)
- Head On 2 (1979) (as Gremlin/Sega)
- Carnival (1980) (as Gremlin/Sega)
- Digger (1980) (as Gremlin/Sega)
- Pulsar (1980) (as Gremlin/Sega)
- Borderline (1981) (as Sega/Gremlin)
Zaxxon hardware
- Zaxxon (1981) (as Sega/Gremlin)
- Razzmatazz (1983)
- Ixion (unreleased)
G80
- Astro Blaster (1981) (as Gremlin/Sega)
- Space Fury (1981) (as Sega/Gremlin)
- Eliminator (1981) (as Sega/Gremlin)
- Star Trek: Strategic Operations Simulator (1982)
- Tac/Scan (1982)
- Pig Newton (1983)
Arcade
- Gee Bee (1978) (as Gremlin Industries)
- Astro Fighter (1979) (as Gremlin/Sega)
- Space Firebird (1980) (as Gremlin/Sega)
- Moon Cresta (1980) (as Gremlin/Sega)
- Frogger (1981) (as Sega/Gremlin)
- Super Moon Cresta (1981) (as Sega/Gremlin)
- Tactician (1981) (as Sega/Gremlin)
Atari 2600
- Star Trek: Strategic Operations Simulator (1983)
- Thunderground (1983)
- Deep Scan (1983)
- Tac/Scan (1983)
- Spy Hunter (1984)
- Congo Bongo II (unreleased)
- Ixion (unreleased)
Atari 5200
Apple II
Atari 8-bit family
- Star Trek: Strategic Operations Simulator (1983)
- Ixion (unreleased)
Commodore 64
MSX
- Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom (1983)
- Congo Bongo (1983)
VIC-20
- Ixion (unreleased)
Blockade hardware
- Should this section and its respective games be removed? It's unclear if Sega was involved during this time.
Magazine articles
- Main article: Sega Electronics/Magazine articles.
List of staff
Gallery
Gremlin Industries logo
Gremlin/Sega logo
Sega/Gremlin logo
Promotional group photo
Internal documents
Corporate reporting structure (1979-07-01)
Corporate reporting structure (1981)
Adminstration (1981-03-05)
Engineering division (1981-03-06)
Manufacturing division (1981-02-06)
Marketing division (1981-02-03)
Product list
History (1982-04-21)
Distributors by state (1982)
Photographs
- Main article: Photos of Sega Electronics
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Cash Box, "October 28, 1978" (US; 1978-10-28), page 72
- ↑ Cash Box, "July 2, 1983" (US; 1983-07-02), page 94
- ↑ File:ArcadeExpress US 0110.pdf, page 2
- ↑ Cash Box, "November 20, 1982" (US; 1982-11-20), page 66
- ↑ JoyStik, "April 1983" (US; 1983-xx-xx), page 24
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Cash Box, "September 10, 1983" (US; 1983-09-10), page 37
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| Service Games | Gulf+Western | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Service Games, Hawaii & Nevada & Japan | Nihon Goraku Bussan & Nihon Kikai Seizou | Sega Enterprises, Inc. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sega Enterprises, Ltd. | Sega Ltd. & Gremlin | Sega Ltd. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||