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View topic - Whodunit: Sega CS5

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  • Joined: 02 Jan 2005
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Whodunit: Sega CS5
Post Posted: Sun Jun 06, 2021 11:21 pm
From the very little information that I can find, CS5 seems to have been the division of Sega in charge of Game Gear software.

One of the people featured here joined Sega CS5 Lab (セガCS5研) in 1992, working part-time as a planner. He worked on "Royal Stone."
https://igcc.jp/kenjo-03-01/

A magazine called "Game Boy" apparently talked about CS5 a lot.
https://twitter.com/chibaminato_jp/status/1313617065110982656

You can see an article about "J.League GG Pro Striker '94" here. CS5 is mentioned.
https://twitter.com/madpilla/status/1042017485443088384
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Post Posted: Thu Feb 24, 2022 1:13 am
A former graphic designer at CS5 (CS5研, 第5CS研究開発部) from 1994 to 1995
http://shinjuwankougeki.web.fc2.com/sinyazangyou/img/sega/sega.html

Worked on Tama & Friends, Magic Knight Rayearth, Quiz Gear Fight, Sylvan Tale, and Zenki. Don't know if they're specifically referring to Zenki, but they recall the programming was outsourced and visiting the company (probably Hidaka Electronics in the case of Zenki) twice a week.
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SEGA CS5 & Consumer 2 (CS2) in Harmony
Post Posted: Sun Aug 20, 2023 12:02 pm
Producer Motoshige Hokoyama was also a member of CS5. In issue 128 of the Harmony newsletter, he was announced to have been transferred from Consumer R&D 2 to CS R&D 5. This is from a May & June issue of 1994 (reporting on changes made April 1, which is when CS4 and CS5 were newly established), so just a couple months Torarete Tamaruka!? released with ほこちゃん as a producer with 2 people who were probably producing it before the changes:
Hiroshi Aso (who went from Consumer R&D 2 to CS R&D 3 at the same time)
and Katsuhiro Hasegawa (the same time in 1993 he was listed as assistant manager of Consumer R&D 2's Design Planning Section 2).

If we assume CS5 was newly established in 1994 (seeing as there were now going to be home console development for Game Gear, Mega Drive, Saturn and 32x, might wanna make their teams distinct) and that Consumer 2 (nicknamed CS2) was handling Game Gear before that... here's some members of that in 1993
Noriyoshi Ohba (Consumer 2 Section 1) -> Consumer 1))
Junichi Tsuchiya (Consumer 1 -> Consumer 2)
Eiro Nagata (Consumer 2 Section 2 -> Consumer 2) (today for the first time I realised how the name was meant to be pronounced and it shows he has a long history dating back to 1983's Star Jacker, so added his page to Sega Retro and will be making MobyGames corrections)
Keiichi Yamamoto (Consumer 2 Section 1 -> Consumer 3)
Tomohiro Kondo (Consumer 2 Section 1 -> Consumer 3)
Hiroyuki Kawaguchi (Consumer 2 Section 1 -> Consumer 3)

Harmony also has employees sometimes participate in quizzes, or their marriages are documented, or they would write a review of a movie/music album, or wishing everyone a happy new year, which would usually be accompanied by their department, so from what's been scanned for Retro CDN, it reveals
Akihiko Mukaiyama (Consumer 2, February 1993)
Norihito Kato (Consumer 2, January 1994)
青木 聖 (Consumer 2, January 1994) (not someone I know at all, but they appeared in February 1993 as part of CS R&D Management Department)

The Section 1 developers of the 1992 CS2 were instead involved with Mega CD games like Panic!, Sonic CD and get thanks in 3x3 EYES, and those tended to come from a background of working on the SEGA Game Library, or descended from R&D 6 which did stuff with Western appeal like sports games, Disney games and Street of Rage/Shinobi (mentioned by Noriyoshi Ohba in the book SEGA CONSUMER HISTORY)

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Post Posted: Sun Aug 20, 2023 11:55 pm
I've talked to someone who was with CS2. They recalled that CS1 was Mega Drive, CS2 was Game Gear, and CS3 was Mega CD. My assumption is that Sega spun off Game Gear development into CS5 so they could focus on the Saturn.

The June 14, 1996 issue of Japanese Sega Saturn Magazine has a feature on the different divisions of Sega. CS4 and CS5 are not mentioned, so they were probably gone by that point.
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Post Posted: Mon Aug 21, 2023 8:35 am
CRV wrote
I've talked to someone who was with CS2. They recalled that CS1 was Mega Drive, CS2 was Game Gear, and CS3 was Mega CD. My assumption is that Sega spun off Game Gear development into CS5 so they could focus on the Saturn.

The June 14, 1996 issue of Japanese Sega Saturn Magazine has a feature on the different divisions of Sega. CS4 and CS5 are not mentioned, so they were probably gone by that point.

Indeed, I did end up seeing your conversation on Twitter with @Madpilla and had a double-check of that 1996 article to see if there was a mention of the former CS4 and CS5 (it's a lucky thing I recently check it out for writing a short Koichi Nagata biography). Thank you for the help, it made for a fascinating day to focus on CS divisions again.
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