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 Spinball
The game has been rereleased on 11 different platforms. The Genesis version of the game has been rereleased on the "Sonic Mega Collection" compilation for the Nintendo GameCube, PlayStation 2, Xbox and PCs, "Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection" for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, and multiple iterations of the "Sega Smash Pack" series of compilations. The Game Gear version appears as an unlockable game in "" for the GameCube and PC, as well as "Sonic Gems Collection" for the GameCube and PlayStation 2. The game was intended to be included in the "Sonic Classic Collection" for the Nintendo DS, but was cut for unspecified reasons. The Genesis version was released on the Wii's Virtual Console on March 12, 2007 in North America and April 5, 2007 in Europe. An emulated form of the game was also made available for iOS devices via Apple's App Store in 2010, but was later removed along with other Sega titles in 2015. On September 13, 2010, it was released on Steam.