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).
Sega CD
The Sega CD supports a library of over 200 games created both by Sega and an array of third-party publishers. Included in this library are six games which, while receiving individual Sega CD releases, also received separate versions that utilized both the Sega CD and 32X add-ons. Among the games released for the add-on were a number of FMV games, including "Sewer Shark" and "Fahrenheit". Well-regarded games include "Sonic CD", "" and "", "Popful Mail", and "Snatcher", as well as the controversial "Night Trap". Although Sega created "Streets of Rage" for the Genesis to compete against the SNES port of the arcade hit "Final Fight", the Sega CD received an enhanced version of the latter game that has been praised for its greater faithfulness to the arcade original. "" was noted for its impressive use of the system's hardware as well as its violent content. In particular, "Sonic CD" garnered critical acclaim for its graphics and new time travel elements, which improved upon the traditional "Sonic" formula. The Sega CD also received enhanced ports of games from the Genesis, such as "Batman Returns" and "Ecco the Dolphin".