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 3D Blast
"Sonic 3D Blast" was the final "Sonic the Hedgehog" game produced for the Sega Genesis, and was developed as a swan song for the system. Sega had discontinued official support for the Genesis in 1995, but intended to produce the game for the 16-bit console because games typically sell for one to two years after their platforms' discontinuation. The game's basic concept was conceived by members of Sonic Team during the development of "Sonic the Hedgehog 3", but most of the programming was done by the British studio Traveller's Tales because Sonic Team was developing "Nights into Dreams". According to founder Jon Burton, Traveller's Tales had just finished developing a "Toy Story" game and wanted to start developing games for 32-bit systems such as the Saturn and PlayStation. Sega, impressed with their work on "Toy Story" and "Mickey Mania", approached them with "3D Blast"; as "Sonic" was extremely popular at the time, the concept "got [their] attention". In retrospect, Burton stated that he believed the game was commissioned because "Sonic X-treme", in development for the Saturn at the time, was struggling, and Sega wanted to bring Sonic into the 3D era of gaming.