Sega is a multinational gaming entertainment company. It has been involved in most of the events in the history of video game art, and has achieved few successes and repeated defeats. Give it a round of applause: a company that has developed more than 530 arcade games and has developed a Guinness Book of World Records number of games.
Pictured is Sega and Sonic.
In May 1940, three American businessmen, Martin Bromley, Irving Bromberg, and James Humpert, formed Standard Games: Standard Games, which specialized in providing jukeboxes and slot games to U.S. military bases.
The earliest Segabel slot machines.
The standard game business was tepid, and it did not think that the Japanese Navy had a wave of riots on December 7, 1941: the raid on Pearl Harbor. Standard Games' performance improved rapidly, transportation was inconvenient during the war years, and Standard Games' business still contracted in the Pacific. In 1945, World War II ended and Standard Games changed its name to Service Games. Service is military logistics, indicating that the audience of standard gaming companies has been identified as military logistics personnel.
In 1946, Service Games began to provide slot machines to the U.S. occupation area, and by 1950, Service Games' focus market became Japan. The United States occupied Japan from September 2, 1945, when Japan surrendered, and until the San Francisco Peace Treaty came into force on April 28, 1952. The U.S. military that occupied Japan had a lot of time and money and was the main target of Service Games.
In 1951, the U.S. government enacted the Transportation of Gambling Devices Act. States have banned slot operations, and Service Game, the main U.S. slot maker, has had to relocate its company to Tokyo.
In 1952, Bromley founded service games of Japan to provide slot machines for U.S. military bases in Japan.
In 1953, Service Game Panama was established to hold all of Service Game's entities and expand distribution in Korea, the Philippines, and Vietnam.
In 1954, U.S. Air Force soldier David Rosen founded Rosen Enterprises in Japan. Lawson primarily sells Japanese-created art to the U.S. market, as well as photo studios for ID cards, and Rosen has opened hundreds of photo studios in Japan.
In 1957, Lawson shifted its focus and imported the coin-operated game consoles that were popular in the United States into Japan. Rosen took advantage of the photo studio's vanity to operate a coin-operated game console.
In 1960, the U.S. government conducted an investigation into service game commercial crimes. On May 31, Service Game was forced to disband. On June 3, Bromley established two new companies to take over Service Game: Japan Entertainment & Products (Operations Division) and Japan Machinery Manufacturing (Manufacturing Division). Nippon Machinery Manufacturing operates under the name Sega, mainly manufacturing slot machines. Nippon Entertainment & Co., Ltd. operates under the name Utamatic as a coin jukebox. In July, it launched Japan's first domestic jukebox "SEGA1000", becoming the first product to use the "SEGA" brand.
SEGA, that is, the first 2 English letters of Service Game: a combination of SE and GA.
In 1964, Nippon Entertainment & Industrial merged with Nippon Machinery Manufacturing. The combined company used the name of Japanese entertainment products and entered the video game market in the same year.
In 1965, led by David Rosen, Rosen and Nippon Entertainment Properties formally merged on July 15. The new company was named SEGA: Sega. Rosen served as CEO of Sega, whose main business shifted from importing game consoles to manufacturing them.
After sega was founded, the focus of its business shifted from slot machines to coin jukeboxes and coin-operated game consoles. Imports include Rock-Ola jukeboxes, Williams' pinball games and Midway's shooters. None of these games are video games, but electromechanical games. Since imported machines require frequent maintenance, in order to save costs, Sega chose to replace parts for imported game consoles, which led sega to choose to start self-developed games.
Pictured here is the legendary CEO who has led Sega for more than 20 years, Rosen.
Mystery: Who invented periscope's Namco
In 1966, Sega remake the Periscope game. Rosen personally initiated the Periscope project, with Shikanosuke as the project leader, who is the main technician of Sega Games.
The book writes in Chapter 15: Namco Departs from a Rocking Horse: "In 1965, Nakamura released the first coin-operated game console, Periscope: Periscope. Periscope is an electromechanical shooting game that simulates a submarine firing a torpedo to attack a battleship. In 1966 Sega SEGA remake Periscope as one of the first coin-operated machine games to be launched after the Sega merger. ”
Periscope is not an obscure mini-game, it is a fist work that opened the era of Sega arcades. The game made by Namco has no reason for Sega to remake it. Who invented Periscope? This is a mystery in the history of video game art.
Periscope is a mechatronic game that swept the international market in the mid-to-late 1960s. In the game, after the player aligns the periscope with the target of the ship, press the fire button and the shell will be fired. If hit, an explosion effect is seen in the line of sight, representing hitting the ship.
Periscope helped Sega usher in the era of coin-operated arcades, but who invented it?
Namco's product list reads: Periscope was released in 1965.
In Sega's product list reads: Periscope was released in 1966.
In the history of the two companies, there has not been any cooperation on Periscope.
The picture shows the Sega single-player version of Periscope.
Let's look first at the evidence of Namco. The earliest professional coin-operated machine publication was the 1969 Yumio Machine Dictionary, which listed 2 Periscopes, but there was no specific year of publication. Another english source of the same era was The Cashbox magazine, published on April 15, 1967. This is the first written image material to appear in Periscope, where Nakamura mentions that he hopes to export it to other countries. From the pictures published in Cashbox magazine, it can be seen that There is a big difference between Namco's Periscope and Sega products.
Play Meter January, 1977. Masaya Nakamura, in an interview with editor Larry, put it this way:
Larry: What was the first amusement device you made?
Nakamura: Is a submarine game called Periscope. It's a three-player game with three periscopes arranged in parallel.
Larry: What's next from there?
Nakamura: We made a tank game based on a large tank battle between the Allies and the Germans during World War II.
Larry: When you started making, did you sell these games to your competitors, the operators you've been distributing to?
Nakamura: Yes.
Larry: The submarine game you mentioned sounds like the Seawolf (submarine name). This was ten years ago: Was that the world's first periscope game?
Nakamura: I don't think so, but this is the first submarine game in Japan. There have been some similar games before, however, this was the first famous Periscope game.
Namco has not had many records of Periscope.
The source of the first photo is a flyer from the Namco Museum, which shows Nakamura's logo and the Periscope game, but there is no time on this leaflet.
The second photograph of Masaya Nakamura and Periscope, published in 1982. The photo reads: Masaya Nakamura poses in front of Periscope in 1965. The photo was taken by Masumi Akagi, and the timestamp was added separately.
A reasonable guess is that Namco developed a prototype of Periscope in 1965, and in Order to produce Periscope, it set up its own factory in Tokyo in February 1966. After the production of Periscope, it was only noticed by Cashbox magazine. Nakamura did not know that Sega had a similar game at this time, because Sega's main business at that time was to sell coin-operated game consoles to the United States.
Pictured is a Sega game from 1965.
Mystery: Who invented Periscope's Sega
The first documentation for Sega Periscope was produced at the ATE Trade Show in London on November 28, 1966, and Cashbox magazine mentioned the "Sega version of the Torpedo Shooting Periscope Game", which indicates that there are other Periscope games on the market. But "other Periscope" must be a guide to the dream palace? not necessarily.
The first photo of Sega Periscope appeared in the European coin-operated machine Coin Slot magazine, released on June 25, 1967. This post talks about installing Periscope in Belgium.
In cashbox magazine, published on March 23, 1968, Sega Periscope's ad contained information about the game and the entire company. It's clear from this post that Periscope is known as a game with certain age restrictions, Cashbox calls it an "industry classic," and Rosen notes that it was "first staged a few years ago."
Sega's data shows that the Periscope game must have existed before 1966, and the evidence is clear in public publications.
The picture shows the comparison between Namco and Sega Periscope.
The two games are so similar that it's hard to believe that they have nothing to do with each other.
Third party - Mayfield Corporation
Mayfield Corporation: Mayfield Electronics Ltd. is a manufacturer of recreational facilities in TheShire of Kashire, England. They produce a variety of coin-operated game consoles. In August 1964, Cashbox magazine first reported on the company.
In 1965, Mayfield launched a game called "Torpedo Shooting" in the UK market. The game differs from Nakamura Studios and Sega's Periscope, although they have some similarities. "Torpedo Shooting" is a standalone target shooting game where players fire missiles in the dark. Some magazines and newspapers also call this game Periscope, but this game has little to do with the Periscope being discussed, otherwise there would be no Sega Periscope defining a coin-operated arcade.
How did Mayfield and Sega come together? Sega used to operate in the UK market when it operated slot machines and jukeboxes, but this does not mean that the two are linked. More likely to make the connection: On December 16, 1966, Edward Oswald Carter, a Mayfield electronics company, filed a patent for "a new or improved indoor gaming device."
The patent diagram is as follows:
The patent looks like a two-person version of Periscope.
Fact One: At the ATE Trade Show in London on November 28, 1966, Sega showcased the Periscope coin machine.
Fact Two: On December 16, 1966, Mayfield & Company filed a patent for Periscope.
Fact Three: Neither Namco nor Sega has patented Periscope.
Mayfield most likely saw Periscope at the show and quickly filed a patent for a cut-out version.
Who exactly is the inventor of Periscope? Namco, Sega or Mayfield.
Researcher Alex Smith chose to believe Inam, believing that Sega copied It. His reasoning was based on the fact that Sega did not have the ability to develop periscope, an epoch-making product from zero to one, while Namco had the ability to do engineering.
The speculation in this book is more biased toward Sega making Periscope. The historical evidence of Namco does not push the invention of Periscope to before November 1966. Masaya Nakamura also did not accuse Sega of plagiarism, mentioning that Periscope was namco's first game, not the first original.
As for Mayfield, it was nothing more than a speculator, swept into the garbage heap of history in 1972.
If there is no stronger evidence: there is a high probability that Nakamura Masaya has misremembered the time.
Sega is coming
Why is this article going to take such a deeper look at Periscope, because it's an epoch-making product like Pac-Man. In 1967, Sega officially entered the coin-operated machine market with Periscope: Periscope Shooter.
A story of "Americans from Japan, fighting Japanese in the American market" lays the groundwork here.