In the modern video game landscape, it takes a lot to get me upset. I pledge no allegiance to any console. I’m not all that fussed about hype around upcoming games. I’m weirdly cool with online video game culture being dominated by male voices. What I am not cool with? Getting facts wrong. I don’t like it when clothing manufacturers get their heritage branding wrong, and I don’t like it when video game companies do it, either. So don’t tell me Sega was established in 1951.
In the interest of full disclosure, I have been working on and off for the past two years on a book about the history of Sega up to 1973 (when the company underwent a restructure and started to look much more like the Sega we’d recognize today), so I will be glossing over certain facts that I could give in more detail…to protect my own research. I do have solid paperwork and interviews for everything being stated here, though.
Now, I will say in fairness to Sega that their own history is not the easiest to understand, I fully understand how they got to the 1951 date. However, it’s not historically accurate: they should have chosen either 1945 or 1956, but not 1951. Heck, they could have even picked 1965 for Sega Enterprises as opposed to the Service Games branch. Let’s go.