Sega Hitmaker

Hitmaker

Former type	Division (Defunct)
Industry	Video games industry
Fate	Merged with Sega's Research and Development
Founded	February 2000 (2000-02)
Defunct	2004 (2004)
Headquarters	Japan
Owner	Sega
Website	web.archive.org/web/20050101031830/http://www.hitmaker.co.jp

Hitmaker was a division of Japanese video game developer of Sega.

History

Logo for Sega Rosso before being merged into Hitmaker

In 2000, all of Sega's in-house Consumer (CS) and Amusement Machine (AM) R&D departments were separated from the main company and established on 9 semi-autonomous subsidiaries, with each subsidiary getting an elected president as a studio head.^[1] However, for more financial stability, Sega began consolidating its studios into five main ones in 2003 (Sega Wow, Sega AM2, Hitmaker, Amusement Vision, Smilebit, Sonic Team), and merged them back into a uniform R&D structure in 2004.

Hitmaker was established from the AM3 department which has created popular arcade favourites in past, such as Virtual-On, Derby Owners Club, Crazy Taxi and Virtua Tennis. It was headed by Hisao Oguchi, Mie Kumagai and Kenji Kanno.

Sega Rosso was headed by Kenji Sasaki, the company was short-lived before being absorbed by Hitmaker. It contributed to Sega's arcade line-up with Cosmic Smash and Initial D Arcade Stage.^[2] With the latter becoming a major franchise.

In 2003, Mie Kumagai replaced Hisao Oguchi as the company president,^[3] when Hisao Oguchi was promoted to President of the entire Sega company. Also in 2003, the studio absorbed Sega Rosso, making Initial D Arcade Stage part of its line-up.^[4] By 2004, Hitmaker had 193 employees which focused on arcade development after the integration into Sega.^[5]

List of games

Hitmaker

Arcade

Dreamcast

• Virtua Athlete 2K (2000)
• Virtua Tennis (2000)
• Confidential Mission (2001)
• Cosmic Smash (2001)
• Crazy Taxi 2 (2001)
• Segagaga (2001)
• Virtua Tennis 2 (2001)

Game Boy Advance

• Sega Rally Championship (2002)
• Astro Boy: Omega Factor (2003)

PlayStation 2

• Crazy Taxi (2001)
• Virtua Tennis 2 (2002)
• Cyber Troopers Virtual-On Marz (2003)
• Initial D Special Stage (2003)

Xbox

• Crazy Taxi 3: High Roller (2002)

GameCube

• Crazy Taxi (2001)
• Amazing Island (2003)

PC

• Derby Owners Club Online (2004)

Sega Rosso

Arcade

• NASCAR Arcade (2000)
• Star Wars Racer Arcade (2000)
• La Keyboard XYU (2001)
• Cosmic Smash (2001)
• Initial D Arcade Stage (2002)
• Soul Surfer (2002)

Dreamcast

• Cardcaptor Sakura: Tomoyo no Video Daisakusen (2000)
• Cosmic Smash (2001)

References