Sega of America

Sega of America, Inc. (SoA) is a company headquartered in Irvine, California, having moved there from San Fransisco, California in 2015 which responsible for Sega Corporation's North American operations. The sister division is Sega Europe. SoA is largely considered to be Sega's second base of opeartions, following Sega of Japan which ultimately makes the final decisions. Sega of America was Sega's second attempt at cracking the US market - its first, was a company known as the "Sega Enterprises, Inc." which had previously made a traction in the region in the late of 1970s and early 1980s, only to have much of its assets to sold to Paramount in the wake of North American video game crash of 1983.

Sega subsequently pulled back for few months (establishing a relationship with Bally Midway for arcade and home console distribution), but re-entered the market later some time with the intent of marketing their latest console, the Sega Master System to the American populace.

For many years it was believed that America couldn't produce video games to Japanese standards - SoA's first home-grown game, Monopoly needed to be "saved" from poor quality production and impending delays in 1988, and this trend often continued, with SoA adopting a policy of quantity over quality. Over time, Sega of America became the dominant force within Sega, thanks to luminous executive Tom Kalinske. This was in thanks to marketing strategies of the Genesis in the US, as well as a strong line-up of games that defined Sega's library like Ecco the Dolphin, ToeJam & Earl, Comix Zone, as well as sports games and other games based on western licenses and movies.

Around 2015, Sega was evaluating on how they should handle the American branch in the future. Effectively, SoA was relocated from San Francisco to Irvine, California, to share the same office with Atlus USA, which Sega had acquired earlier. The main purpose of the new Sega of America and Atlus USA, is to localize the Japanese games of their respective parent company. In addition, a dedicated office for the Sonic franchise in Burbank, California exists as well.