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 Team
The "Sonic the Hedgehog" project began with just Naka and Ohshima, but grew to involve two programmers, two sound engineers, and three designers. Yasuhara joined to supervise Naka and Ohshima and develop levels, and became the lead designer. He satisfied Naka's request for a simple, one-button design by having Sonic do damage by jumping. "Sonic the Hedgehog" was released in 1991 and proved a major success, contributing to millions of sales of the Genesis. The development team took the name Sonic Team for the game's release. Naka has referred to Sonic Team as only a "team name" at this point.