Sega!

Gamers world-wide know and accept a pantheon of gaming giants. These include:

Atari – Console and software maker. Founded 1972.
Nintendo – Console and software maker. Founded in 1889, but didn’t jump onto the videogame battlefield until the early to mid 1970s.
EA – Software maker and publisher, Founded 1982.
Sony Computer Entertainment – Console and software maker. The Johnny-Come-Latelies founded in 1993.

But there is one giant who predates all of these, who from the very beginning was about bringing electronic games to the masses: Sega. Sega was founded originally as Standard Games, and soon became Service Games (Service Games … Sega … get it?), in 1940. Back then, their purpose was to bring arcade games to servicemen abroad.

And now, after decades of developing electronic entertainment products, I dare you to find anyone, claiming himself to be a gamer, who has not played at least one product created by Sega, be it an old school arcade game or the most recent iteration of Sonic for the Wii. Sega has been so ubiquitous in our gamer world that many of us have deep-seated emotions and vivid memories about them to match their depth of involvement in the game industry.

And it is these deep emotions and vivid memories which prompts this week’s issue of The Escapist, “Sega!” about … well, Sega. Russ Pitts shares his woes of battle when he took sides with Dreamcast over the PlayStation 2 in that round of the console war. Newcomer Edward Moore can’t outrun his favorite Sega game of years past, nor does he want to. Shawn Williams runs through the full history of the Sonic franchise. Spanner discusses his disillusionment with Sega through the mighty gaming giant’s ups and downs. And Gearoid Reidy returns to explain his sense of d