Sonic Team
The initial team formed in 1990 and was composed of developers from Sega's Consumer Development division, including programmer Yuji Naka, artist Naoto Ohshima, and level designer Hirokazu Yasuhara. The team took the name Sonic Team in 1991 with the release of "Sonic the Hedgehog" for the Sega Genesis. The game was a major success that contributed to millions of Genesis sales. The next "Sonic" games were developed by Naka and Yasuhara in America at Sega Technical Institute, while Ohshima worked on "Sonic CD" in Japan. Naka returned to Japan in late 1994 to become the head of CS3, later renamed R&D #8. During this time, the division took on the Sonic Team brand but developed games that do not feature Sonic, such as "Nights into Dreams" (1996) and "Burning Rangers" (1998).
Sonic the Hedgehog (1991 video game)
"Sonic"'s success led to an extensive media franchise, with the first of many sequels, "Sonic the Hedgehog 2," released the following year. It has generated dozens of additional games and a large cast of recurring characters, keeping Sonic and Robotnik (later renamed as Eggman) mainstays, and continued beyond Sega's exit from the console industry after the Dreamcast. The series has ventured from platformers to fighting, racing, role-playing, and sports games, and also expanded into anime, manga, cartoons comic books, novels, and toys. "Sonic the Hedgehog" is one of the best-selling video game franchises of all time, with over 140 million copies sold or downloaded worldwide across consoles, PC’s, mobile phones and tablets by May 2014. The first stage, Green Hill Zone, has been used in several games, such as "Sonic Adventure 2", "Sonic Generations", "Sonic Mania", "Sonic Forces", and the "Super Smash Bros." series.