Sega Racing Studio (defunct)

About

Established by Sega in 2005 to develop racing games which included making new IP's as well as making sequels to some of Sega's already established franchises, such as the Sega Rally series or Daytona series.

In 2005, Sega established it's own internal development company to produce racing games. The Studio consisted of around 60 employees who were hired from other UK based development companies such as Codemasters, Criterion, Rare and  Rockstar. Sega Racing Studio immediately started work on the Sega Rally franchise, which is one of Sega's most popular racing series. In 2007 they released the studio's debut video game; Sega Rally Revo for the Xbox 360 and PS3. Unfortunately, the game recieved poor sales despite being one of the best arcade racing games on consoles at the time. Alongside development of Sega Rally Revo, they were also developing Sega Rally 3 which is an arcade port (although a significantly improved port) of the console versions which was released in the arcades in 2008.

Closure

On 8th April 2008, Sega announced that it would be closing the doors at Sega Racing Studio. No official reason was given, although many suspect it was due to the poor sales of both Sega Rally Revo and Sega Rally 3. A statement given by Sega after it's closure said that no employees from Sega Racing Studio were bought onto other Sega development Studios. However, Codemasters bought Sega Racing Studio later in the month, and it is suspected that some employees from the studio were again hired under Codemasters.

Game Development

Sega Racing Studio developed and released the following games:

Sega Rally Revo

Sega Rally 3

In addition to these games, a member of the development team who was laid off after the studio's closure, announced that they were developing a sequel to the Daytona series. But were closed down long before the game was published.