Sega Sports R&D
Former division of Sega / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sega Sports Research and Development (セガスポーツの研究開発, Segasupōtsu no kenkyū kaihatsu) or Sega Sports R&D was a development division of the Japanese video game company Sega. It was previously known as Smilebit, one of nine semi-autonomous studios which Sega established in 2000. Smilebit was previously known as R&D6 or AM6 which itself was mainly based on Sega PC. Smilebit was known for its sports simulation titles, as well as Jet Set Radio.[1][full citation needed] When Sega started releasing games for other platforms, Smilebit began developing games for the Xbox, with Jet Set Radio Future, Panzer Dragoon Orta and GunValkyrie.[2] Smilebit was led by Shun Arai as president and Takayuki Kawagoe as director. Kawagoe became president of Smilebit in 2003.[3]
Native name | セガスポーツ研究開発 |
---|---|
Romanized name | Segasupōtsu kenkyū kaihatsu |
Formerly | Sega R&D2 Sega CS1 Sega CS Sega Software R&D Dept #6 Smilebit Corporation |
Company type | Division |
Industry | Video games |
Founder | Shun Arai |
Fate | Merged with Sega Research and Development |
Headquarters | |
Key people | Shun Arai Takayuki Kawagoe |
Parent | Sega |
During a re-organization, Sega's nine studios were consolidated into "four of five core operations", and the non-sports staff of Smilebit was merged into Amusement Vision. Smilebit became exclusively dedicated to sports titles, with the Virtua Striker series from Amusement Vision becoming attributed to Smilebit.[4] When Sega and Sammy were merged into Sega Sammy Holdings, all of the studios merged back into Sega. Smilebit became Sega Sports R&D and developed more sport simulation games,[5] as well as the first entry of the Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games series.[6] Later, these games were later given to CS1 and CS2 designations,[7][8] and Sega Sports R&D ceased to exist.