Short: The Death of Sega

Sega and the Genesis was THE underdog story of the early 90’s. In a single console generation, Sega went from ~zero to 50% US market share and dethroned Nintendo’s seemingly invincible global monopoly. But — somehow — it all then died. Two console generations later Sega was out of the hardware game entirely, and the company was sold off for pieces to a pachinko manufacturer. How on earth did this happen??

Today we’re launching Acquired Shorts in order to tell this story and others like it: side tales from the “Acquired Cinematic Universe” that are too brief for a full episode, but too good to leave in the vault. We’d love to hear your thoughts on the format (and this episode). Please send us your feedback in Slack, email or Twitter!

Links:

• The shortest and most famous speech in video game industry history
• Episode sources

Carve Outs:

• Daryl Morey on Invest Like the Best
• Succession
• Starship
• 6 Days to Air

Sponsors:

• Anthropic: https://bit.ly/acquiredclaude25
• Sentry: https://bit.ly/acquiredsentry
  • The Acquired Meetup (in SF!): https://bit.ly/sentryacquiredmeetup
• WorkOS: https://bit.ly/workos26 
  • Full Acquired Unplugged Videos: https://acquired.fm/unplugged
• Statsig: https://bit.ly/acquiredstatsig26

More Acquired!

• Get email updates with hints on next episode and follow-ups from recent episodes
• Join the Slack
• Subscribe to ACQ2
• Merch Store!

© Copyright 2015-2026 ACQ, LLC

Note: Acquired hosts and guests may hold assets discussed in this episode. This podcast is not investment advice, and is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. You should do your own research and make your own independent decisions when considering any financial transactions.