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Sonic Team

Japanese video game developer

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 8, 2026
Entity authorityQ1140960 ↗
Source-derived summary

Sega CS R&D Dept. No. 2, doing business as Sonic Team, is a Japanese video game developer owned by Sega. Sonic Team is best known for its Sonic the Hedgehog series. Some Sonic Team games, such as the original Sonic games and Nights into Dreams (1996), are considered among the best ever made.

The initial team, formed in 1990, consisted of Sega developers including programmer Yuji Naka, artist Naoto Ohshima and level designer Hirokazu Yasuhara. The team took the name Sonic Team in 1991 with the release of their first game, Sonic the Hedgehog, for the Sega Genesis. It was a major success and contributed to millions of Genesis sales. The next Sonic games were developed by Naka and Yasuhara in America at Sega Technical Institute, while Ohshima worked on Sonic CD in Japan at CS3. Naka returned to Japan in 1994 to become the head of CS3, later renamed R&D No.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Sonic Team” is japanese video game developer. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Sonic, Team and Japanese, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1996, 1990, 1991, 1994—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 2000. For this dossier, Sonic, Team and Japanese is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “japanese video game developer” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1140960. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1996, 1990, 1991 and 1994.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Sonic Team”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Sonic Team primary sources, Sonic Team archive and Sonic research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Sonic Team”?
  2. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
  3. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Sonic Team” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.