List of Sonic Team games
In addition to the "Sonic" series, the company has developed other games for Sega, such as "Nights into Dreams" (1996) and "Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg" (2003). The 1991 release of "Sonic the Hedgehog" is considered significant in video game history, as it increased the Sega Genesis's sales and Sega displaced Nintendo as the leading video game company. Some of Sonic Team's games, such as the Genesis-era "Sonic" games and "Nights", are considered by critics to be among the greatest video games ever released.
Sega Genesis
In Japan, the Mega Drive did not fare well against its two main competitors, Nintendo's Super Famicom and NEC's PC Engine, but it achieved considerable success in North America, Brazil, and Europe. Contributing to its success were its library of arcade game ports, the popularity of Sega's "Sonic the Hedgehog" series, several popular sports franchises, and aggressive youth marketing that positioned the system as the cool console for adolescents. The release of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System two years after the Genesis resulted in a fierce battle for market share in the United States and Europe that has often been termed as a "console war" by journalists and historians. As this contest drew increasing attention to the video game industry among the general public, the Genesis and several of its highest-profile games attracted significant legal scrutiny on matters involving reverse engineering and video game violence. Controversy surrounding violent games such as "Night Trap" and "Mortal Kombat" led Sega to create the Videogame Rating Council, a predecessor to the Entertainment Software Rating Board.