Sega
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47 free Sega trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
Sega began as a slot-machine supplier to American military bases and ended up as the only company that ever made Nintendo sweat. In between came Periscope and Out Run in the arcades, the Master System, the Mega Drive that became the Genesis, a blue hedgehog whose shoes were inspired by Michael Jackson, a surprise Saturn launch that enraged retailers, and a Dreamcast that sold 225,000 units in a day and still could not save the hardware business. These 47 questions cover the whole arc. The easy tier covers Sonic, the Genesis, the Dreamcast and the parent company. The middle asks about the Honolulu founders, the Tonka deal, Tom Kalinske's four-point plan, Virtua Fighter, Purikura, the Videogame Rating Council and the man who forgave a $500 million loan. The hard end digs into the Diamond Star slot machine, Head On, the Bandai merger that never happened, the NAOMI board, Sega World Sydney, Shenmue's budget and the studio heads who walked out when asked to abandon consoles. Every answer is cited to a page we checked and comes with a short explanation. Play it solo or print it for a retro gaming night.
30 of 47 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Sega's name is an abbreviation of which earlier company name?
Service Games
Service Games was named for its customers: it sold slot machines to US servicemen on military bases. The first two letters of each word gave the brand name Sega.
Q 02Which 1960s Sega submarine shooter was such a hit that it helped make 25 cents the standard US arcade price?
Periscope
Periscope's cabinet was so large and costly to ship that Sega urged arcade owners to charge a premium. Players paid it, and the profits turned Sega from an importer into a maker of its own games.
Q 03Which American conglomerate, already the owner of Paramount Pictures, bought Sega in 1969?
Gulf and Western
Gulf and Western kept co-founder David Rosen in charge, then lost its nerve after the 1983 video game crash and sold Sega's Japanese arm back to him and his partners.
Q 04Which early-1980s Sega space shooter was one of the first games drawn in an angled isometric view?
Zaxxon
Zaxxon tilted the playfield so that height mattered: players watched their ship's shadow and an altitude meter to judge whether they would clear each fortress wall.
Q 05Sega's 1979 maze game Head On was a forerunner of which Namco classic from 1980?
Pac-Man
Pac-Man's dot-eating had a forerunner: in Head On, a car circles a maze of lanes clearing every dot while a rival car tries to ram it head-on.
Q 06What was Sega's first home video game console, released in 1983?
SG-1000
SG-1000 went on sale in Japan on the very day Nintendo launched the Famicom, and the rival's more capable hardware soon left it far behind.
Q 07Which Japanese software company backed the 1984 management buyout of Sega?
CSK Corporation
CSK Corporation's money let David Rosen and Hayao Nakayama buy Sega's Japanese arm back from its American owner for $38 million, which made Sega a Japanese-owned company.
Q 08Which toy company did Sega partner with to sell the Master System in North America?
Tonka
Tonka, best known for steel toy trucks, had never handled a games console. Sega handed it US distribution hoping a toy company could match Nintendo's pull with toy retailers.
Q 09In which country has the Master System had lasting success through Sega's partner Tectoy?
Brazil
Brazil taxed imported consoles so heavily that Tectoy's locally built Master System stayed the cheap option for decades, long after Sega stopped making it elsewhere.
Q 10Which 1986 Sega arcade game was inspired by designer Yu Suzuki's road trip across Europe in a rented BMW?
Out Run
Out Run gave players a Ferrari Testarossa because Suzuki spotted one in Monaco on the trip. He had wanted to drive across America instead, inspired by The Cannonball Run.
Q 11Which Sega claw machine, launched in 1985, became so common that its name is everyday Japanese for any crane game?
UFO Catcher
UFO Catcher began life as Eagle Catcher, with claws meant to look like a bird of prey. That proved too hard to build, and the finished grabber looked more like a flying saucer.
Q 12What was the Genesis called outside North America?
Mega Drive
Mega Drive reached Japanese shops in October 1988, a week after Super Mario Bros. 3, which overshadowed the launch. Sega shipped only about 400,000 in the first year.
Q 13Which company declined to market the Genesis in North America before Sega did it itself?
Atari
Atari's boss Jack Tramiel wanted no part of it, so Sega launched the Genesis itself in 1989, then hired Michael Katz, a former Atari executive, to run Sega of America.
Q 21Which Genesis add-on did Sega rush out in late 1994 because Nakayama feared the new Jaguar console?
32X
32X turned a Genesis into a 32-bit machine but could not play Saturn games. With the Saturn only months away, buyers lost interest after one holiday season.
Q 22Which rival console's price was announced at E3 1995 in a speech of just "$299", undercutting the Saturn by $100?
PlayStation
PlayStation's price was all Sony's Steve Race said before leaving the stage. Sega had just stunned the show by putting its $399 console on sale that same day, four months early.
Q 23How did KB Toys react to being shut out of the Saturn's surprise launch?
Refused to stock it
Q 14Which slogan fronted Sega of America's early advertising for its 16-bit console under president Michael Katz?
Genesis does what Nintendon't
Genesis does what Nintendon't named the rival outright, because Katz liked competitive advertising and had a 16-bit machine to set against an ageing 8-bit one.
Q 15Which game did Tom Kalinske replace as the Genesis pack-in with Sonic the Hedgehog?
Altered Beast
Altered Beast made way because Kalinske wanted Sega's strongest new game in every box. Japan's board objected to giving Sonic away, but president Hayao Nakayama told him to go ahead.
Q 16Whose boots inspired Sonic the Hedgehog's shoes?
Michael Jackson's
Michael Jackson's buckled boots on the Bad album cover gave designer Naoto Ohshima the shape. The red and white came from Santa Claus, whom he thought the most famous character in the world.
Q 17Which programmer, fresh from porting Ghouls 'n Ghosts to Sega's 16-bit console, coded the original Sonic the Hedgehog?
Yuji Naka
Yuji Naka got the job because that port proved he could handle a platform game. Naoto Ohshima drew the hedgehog and Hirokazu Yasuhara planned the levels.
Q 18Sega's colour handheld rival to Nintendo's monochrome portable was called what?
Game Gear
Game Gear was close to a scaled-down Master System with a backlit colour screen, and that screen drained six AA batteries in three to five hours.
Q 19Which Sega arcade game of 1993 is credited as the first 3D fighting game?
Virtua Fighter
Virtua Fighter built its brawlers from flat polygons while rivals still drew 2D sprites, and its home port was the game that sold the Saturn at its Japanese launch.
Q 20Which ratings body did Sega set up in 1993, ahead of its home release of Mortal Kombat?
Videogame Rating Council
Videogame Rating Council gave Mortal Kombat an MA-13 label so Sega could sell it as a mature game. The labels lasted about a year, until the whole industry adopted one shared system.
KB Toys refused to stock it because Sega had sent the first 30,000 consoles to just four rival chains, to go on sale the very day of the announcement.
Q 24What unusual design choice made the Saturn hard to program?
Two main processors
Two main processors sat beside two graphics chips and several more. The result was costly to build and few studios ever got full speed from it.
Q 25Which Japanese toy maker did Sega plan to merge with in 1997, in a deal called off that May?
Bandai
Bandai's own middle managers sank it, worried about what joining Sega would do to their company's culture and working conditions. The plan was dropped within months of being announced.
Q 26Which ex-Sony executive at Sega of America declared the Saturn was not our future at E3 1997?
Bernie Stolar
Bernie Stolar had signed up game makers for the PlayStation before Sega hired him away. He wanted a clean break so the company could regroup around its next console.
Q 27Which photo sticker machine did Sega and a partner launch in 1995?
Print Club
Print Club, shortened Japanese-style to purikura, was the idea of a young employee, Miho Sasaki, whose bosses first turned it down. It became the top-earning arcade machine of 1996.
Q 28What kind of attraction were Sega World London and Sega World Sydney, opened in 1996 and 1997?
Indoor theme parks
Indoor theme parks were Sega's 1990s bet on life beyond consoles. London's filled seven floors of the Trocadero, was billed as the largest in the world, and shut after only three years.
Q 29Which arcade system board shared technology with the Dreamcast, allowing near-identical ports?
NAOMI
NAOMI was sold as a cheap successor to the Model 3. Because it was close to a Dreamcast inside, Japanese arcade ports kept reaching the console for years after Sega stopped making it.
Q 30Which Dreamcast launch title was the first major 3D outing for Sega's mascot?
Sonic Adventure
Sonic Adventure reached Japan a month after the console and was ready for the American launch. It gave the Dreamcast the full 3D Sonic game that the Saturn never had.