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).
List of Sonic the Hedgehog characters
The "Sonic the Hedgehog" video game franchise began in 1991 with the game "Sonic the Hedgehog" for the Sega Genesis, which pitted a blue anthropomorphic hedgehog named Sonic against a rotund male human villain named Doctor Eggman (or Doctor Ivo Robotnik). The sequel, "Sonic 2", gave Sonic a fox friend named Tails. Shortly afterward, "Sonic CD" introduced Amy Rose, a female hedgehog with a persistent crush on Sonic, and "Sonic 3" introduced Knuckles the Echidna, Sonic's rival and, later, friend. All five of these have remained major characters and appeared in dozens of games.