He has also stated the reason for this separation was the advent of advanced computer graphics technology. According to Suzuki, Sega employed approximately 600 people in research and development, and that AM2 began as a group of around 100 people. Suzuki was made general manager of Research and Development No. Some time after the release of Power Drift, Sega began to separate the amusement division into the Amusement Machine Research and Development teams, or AM teams. Toshihiro Nagoshi joined Sega as a member of Yu Suzuki's team, and was a designer with AM2 Establishment of AM2 and years as a department Developer Toshihiro Nagoshi joined Sega in 1989 as a designer with Suzuki's team. He also worked on development of G-LOC: Air Battle and the R360 arcade cabinet. He and his team relocated to "Studio 128", a more private location where After Burner and Power Drift were developed. Suzuki's success followed with additional titles Space Harrier, Out Run, and Enduro Racer. Hang-On was very popular at launch and sold well for Sega. To accomplish his desire to make a 3D game despite technological limitations at the time, he specified the design of Sega's new Super Scaler arcade system board, which utilized 16-bit graphics and sprite-scaling. Suzuki's next project was the motorcycle racing game Hang-On. He was promoted to project leader while still in his first year at the company. According to Suzuki, the executive staff at Sega found the game so impressive that they released it in arcades as-is by simply installing an SG-1000 into an arcade cabinet. In his first year, he created a 2D boxing game called Champion Boxing for Sega's first home game console, the SG-1000. At the time Suzuki joined Sega, there was only one development division at the company. Yu Suzuki joined Sega in 1983 as a programmer. Several games produced by Sega AM2 have influenced and innovated the video game industry from a technical and developmental perspective. Since, the team has continued work on arcade games such as Border Break and the Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA series, as well as smartphone games in Japan. A year later Sega was acquired by Sammy Corporation and AM2 was merged back into Sega. Suzuki was promoted and left AM2 in 2003 Hiroshi Kataoka became the head of AM2. Their development of Shenmue was over budget and cost millions of dollars, and despite positive reviews and good sales was unable to become profitable. AM2 was placed under the management of CSK Research Institute in 2000, and a year later became SEGA-AM2 Co., Ltd. Through the remainder of the 1990s, they developed more arcade titles and focused on fighting and racing games. Yu Suzuki, who had previously developed arcade games for Sega including Hang-On and Out Run, was the first manager of the department.ĪM2's first game produced was 1992's Virtua Racing, followed by the highly popular Virtua Fighter and Daytona USA.
2, previously known as SEGA-AM2 Co., Ltd., is a video game development team within the Japanese multinational video game developer Sega.