a designer on Sega Rally Championship. In 1996, producer Tetsuya Mizuguchi met with Hisashi Suzuki, the manager of the R&D division. He and Mizuguchi agreed to create a new department separate from AM3 that would be called AM Annex. Mizuguchi selected the initial team himself, a team of six or seven people that would later grow in number. The first game AM Annex began to develop was Sega Touring Car Championship on the Model 2 arcade board. AM Annex later received the AM8 designation and developed Sega Rally 2 and Star Wars Trilogy Arcade on Sega's Model 3 board. According to Hisao Oguchi, Mizuguchi and Sasaki had departed AM3 with the team of Sega Rally Championship. AM Annex was rebranded as AM12 by September 1998, and AM5 in 1999. The AM5 designation was previously used for a team that designed large attractions for Sega's arcades and indoor amusement parks. Mizuguchi later chose to leave Sasaki after being granted his own department as CS4, later AM9, and even later United Game Artists. Sasaki became head of AM5, while the AM8 designation went to Sonic Team. As the smallest AM department with a staff between 40 and 50 employees, most of Sasaki's staff came from Namco, where Sasaki himself had a role in the development of the Ridge Racer series. AM5 developed Star Wars: Racer Arcade and released it by July 2000. When the studios were separated from Sega, Sasaki chose the name "Sega Rosso" to have a "hotter" image than the "cool" blue color of Sega, and he liked the combination of Sega with the Italian word for red. Sega Rosso's next three games were NASCAR Arcade and Cosmic Smash. Sasaki expressed a desire to work on both arcade and Dreamcast games, as the arcade industry was struggling. Sega Rosso would also work on the Initial D Arcade Stage series before being merged with Hitmaker in 2003. See also Sega development studios Amusement Vision Smilebit Sonic Team Notes References Hitmaker Video game development companies Video game companies established in 1991 Video game companies established in 2000 Video game companies disestablished in 2004 Defunct video game companies of Japan