Sega co-founder and arcade founding father, David Rosen, dies age 95

David Rosen, one of the co-founders of Sega and a founding father of the Japanese arcade scene, has died at the age of 95.

According to his spokesman, Rosen passed away on Christmas Day surrounded by family members.

Rosen, a former American Airman, started his career in the 1950s in Japan, when he founded Rosen Enterprises Ltd, which initially focused on art dealing and photographing for Japanese ID cards.

Later that decade, Rosen recognised a growing disposable income in post-war Japan, and decided to try importing coin-op amusements from the US – an initiative he had to secure a license for from the Japan Ministry of International Trade and Industry.

“Right off the bat, the machines were tremendously successful,” he told Next Generation Magazine in 1996. “It’s embarrassing to say this, but the return generally came in less than two months,” he added, despite significant import fees of 200%.

“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.”

By the early 60s, the amusement business in Japan was growing fast, and other companies began to notice Rosen’s success. Two firms in particular, Taito and Nihon Goraku Bussan – known mostly for their jukebox operations – sought their own licenses from the MITI and, eventually, the latter sought to merge with Rosen Enterprises.

“Going into 1965, the principals of Nihon Goraku Bussan and I had discussions about merging. They were by far the larger company, and Sega was their brand name,” Rosen told Next Generation.

“We decided to merge, and in trying to establish the name of the company, we decided Sega was the best known name, and we took Enterprises from Rosen Enterprises. So our new company became known as Sega Enterprises Ltd, and I became CEO/President after the merger.”

Soon after, in 1966, Sega Enterprises produced its first original game, Periscope, which marked the beginning of the company’s modern indentity as a prolific video game creator. The following year, Rosen co-founded the Japan Amusement Association and was elected as chairman.

Rosen remained at the top of Sega for two more decades. In 1969, the company was sold to the conglomerate Gulf+Western Industries, where he remained CEO of the Sega division. By 1984, Gulf+Western was looking to offload Sega, and Rosen and company exec Hayao Nakayama formed a buyout group to purchase Sega’s Japanese assets.

Rosen agreed to form Sega of America in Los Angeles, where he remained co-president until July 1996, overseeing the launches of all its major games consoles until the Sega Saturn.

“Sega was involved in videogames very shortly after they were invented,” he told Next Gen. “Certainly we were importing games like Pong from day one. We started producing our own videogames shortly thereafter.”