Sega is a video game developer, publisher, and hardware development company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, with multiple offices around the world. The company's involvement in the arcade game industry began as a Japan-based distributor of coin-operated machines, including pinball games and jukeboxes. Sega imported second-hand machines that required frequent maintenance. This necessitated the construction of replacement guns, flippers, and other parts for the machines. According to former Sega director Akira Nagai, this is what led to the company into developing their own games.
Sega released Pong-Tron, its first video-based game, in 1973. The company prospered from the arcade game boom of the late 1970s, with revenues climbing to over US$100 million by 1979. Nagai has stated that Hang-On and Out Run helped to pull the arcade game market out of the 1983 downturn and created new genres of video games.
