Short Sega history

The Guardian tells us that Sega co-founder David Rosen dies aged 95 and use this as an opportunity to relate of short history of Sega:

The co-founder of Sega, who remained a director of the company until 1996, was instrumental in the birth and rise of the video game business in Japan, and in the 1980s and 90s oversaw the establishment of Sega of America and the huge success of the Mega Drive console.

Sega is one of these companies that had a strong impact in a very nascent industry of game consoles post videogame crash of 1984. Sega was already established for a couple of decades (founded in 1960) when they released the Master System competing with Nintendo Entertainment System, and the latter generation the Megadrive (Genesis in North America).

But since, while still alive, Sega has faltered into a less visible presence. Most of us would probably have forgetten about it if it wasn’t for Sonic the Hedgehog, the character automatically associated to Sega. Still popular enough that even Lego released some license set with Sonic. Sonic is to Sega what Mario is to Nintendo.