⁠Who was David Rosen? All about the Sega co-founder as he passes away at 95

David Rosen, one of Sega's founders, passed away at the age of 95. Rosen's life, which was solely dedicated to the development of the modern video game and arcade industries, came to an end on Christmas Day at his Los Angeles home, surrounded by family.

David M. Rosen was born in Brooklyn in 1930 and served in the US Air Force from 1948 to 1952, where he was stationed in Japan during the Korean War. After his service, Rosen decided to remain in Japan instead of going back.

By 1954, he started Rosen Enterprises, Inc., which specialized in the sale of artwork and Photorama, which was a photo studio for identification documents. These photo studios were all over Japan.

Later, Rosen's successful future in arcade entertainment was made possible by the company's gradual shift toward importing coin-operated amusement devices from North America.

Sega's birth and rise under David Rosen

Later in 1965, Rosen combined Rosen Enterprises with Japanese company Nihon Goraku Bussan, Ltd., also known as Service Games, to establish the firm Sega Enterprises, Ltd. The pronunciation of the name "Sega" came from the spelling of the company name "Service Games."

Aided by fellow co-founders Marty Bromley, Ray Lemaire, and Dick Dodderer, the company helped make Sega a leader in the burgeoning arcades of Japan. During his tenure as the company's CEO and managing director, Sega grew in intense popularity, placing arcade machines in cities all over the nation.

Remembering those early days, Rosen said that the pace of the success of Sega's machines was so immediate that returns were often seen in a matter of months, which was unprecedented at the time. Speaking to Next Generation Magazine in 1996, David Rosen said:

“Right off the bat, the machines were tremendously successful. It’s embarrassing to say this, but the return generally came in less than two months.”

He added:

“At this point, I was opening up arcades with these shooting and hunting games throughout Japan, and we were fortunate… I don’t know [how many arcades we had], but by the time I left, there wasn’t a city in Japan that didn’t have one of our arcades.”

In 1969, Sega was bought by Gulf+Western, an American conglomerate, with Rosen as the CEO of the Sega company. After the death of the head of Gulf+Western, Charles Bluhdorn, Rosen, together with Hayao Nakayama and Isao Okawa, purchased Sega back in the mid-1980s to form Sega Ltd.

He later co-founded Sega of America and was its chairman. He was also instrumental in increasing Sega’s market share in America. He remained a director for Sega of Japan until 1996. He retired that same year.

How Sega turned into a home gaming brand

The success of the arcades established the platform for the transformation of Sega into a home gaming brand. During the time of David Rosen, they developed the first home console, which was the SG-1000, in 1983. In the year 1985, they released the Master System, which was an early global rival of Sega against Nintendo, and the Mega Drive / Genesis in 1988, which was the console that introduced the world to the iconic Sonic the Hedgehog character, which gave Sega an international identity.

Though Sega’s last home console, Dreamcast, which came out in 1998, after David Rosen had stepped down from management positions, his reign saw the creation of other systems such as the Saturn, Game Gear hand-held lines, and significant editions for the Genesis platform, the Sega CD and 32X.

David Rosen is widely seen as the founding father of Japan's arcade sector and the visionary who helped unite the gaming cultures of the United States and Japan. His passing at 95 marks the end of an era.

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