I was so sad to hear that David Rosen, one of the founders of Sega, has passed away at the age of 95. His spokesperson, Brad Callaway, let everyone know that he died at his home in Los Angeles on Christmas Day. It’s a real loss for the gaming community.
From the very beginning of Sega, Rosen, along with founders Marty Bromley, Ray Lamaire, and Dick Dodderer, played a key role in shaping the video game world. The company started as Service Game, focusing on arcade-style entertainment, and later simplified its name to Sega.
Sega’s story begins with Rosen Enterprises Ltd., a company founded in Japan in the 1950s. It originally specialized in art and photography for official records. Later, after Sega was established, Rosen played a crucial role in both the growing home console industry and the popular arcade scene.
Rosen remembered in a 1996 interview with Next Generation Magazine (as reported by VideoGamesChronicle) that the machines were a huge success from the very beginning. He even admitted it was a little embarrassing, but the investment generally paid for itself in under two months.
I was really excited at this time because I was opening arcades all over Japan – they were mostly shooting and hunting games, and things just took off! Honestly, I’ve lost track of exactly how many we ended up with, but by the time I moved on, you could find one of our arcades in pretty much every city across the country. It was amazing to see!
Following Sega’s success with arcade games, the company was bought by Gulf+Western in 1969, but they kept David Rosen in charge of the Sega division. Later, in 1984, Rosen and Hayao Nakayama teamed up to purchase Sega from Gulf+Western.
Rosen remained a leader at Sega until the company was bought out. After the buyout, Isao Okawa became chairman and Nakayama became president. Rosen played a key role in establishing Sega of America to manage the company’s operations in the United States, serving as its chairman and also as a director for Sega Japan until 1996.
Throughout his career at the company, Rosen witnessed the evolution of gaming consoles across multiple generations. He started with Sega’s initial home console, the SG-1000 in 1983, and then helped launch the popular Master System in 1985. In 1988, Sega released the Mega Drive (known as the Genesis in some regions), which became famous for introducing the world to the character Sonic.
Sega’s final major console was the Dreamcast, released in 1998, after Tom Kalinske had already left the company. During his time as president, Sega also launched the Saturn console, the Game Gear handheld, and several add-ons for the Genesis, including the Sega CD and the 32X.
According to Rosen, Sega quickly entered the video game market after the technology was first created. They began importing popular games like Pong right away and soon started developing their own games as well.
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2026-01-05 17:11