Pussy Naka thread.https://www.sega-16.com/2026/05/interview-mike-fischer-soa-product-manager-vp/>What was it like going back to Sega? I mean by then Sega had gone software only. They were now a part of Sammy. It wasn’t the same Sega it was before."Oh, it was the same Sega it was before. Sega hadn’t changed a bit! (laughs). I don’t think so. I mean the U.S. team was very different, of course, because turnover is higher in the U.S. By that point, it was very much Peter Moore’s company, so that part I loved...He sent me back to deliver this “Gamer’s Manifesto.” I’m like, “Hey, here are the trends in the U.S. Here are some of the things we need to pick up on. The gamer market has become more mature, M-rated games are important.""Naka just went fucking ballistic on me, yelling at me, saying I wanted to make porno games. Literally, I’ve never seen someone foam at the mouth, but he had literally like foamy spit at the corners of his mouth. 'How many games have you made? How many hits have you delivered? Who are you to come here and tell us?'"Pussy Naka thread.
Yuji Knockers
>How many games have you made? How many hits have you delivered? Who are you to come here and tell us?Completely valid questions. If some dumbass businessman that has never made anything in his life started lecturing me about trends I would get ticked off too. That's so arrogant. Trends are dictated by what artists make, not the other way around. Business people should know their place and shut the fuck up and fuck off. They're parasites that think they're smart, but they're not. It's a person that isn't talented enough to make anything, or one of the creators of Sonic. Just ask yourself who is the real heavy-lifter in that partnership.
XBOX HUGE interview but here is an interesting partThat's for all the copers who claim BK3 is the 'intended' version
Naka was right, fuck muttsharts and their retarded tastes
>>12605540Pussy Naka?Pussy Nigga.
One thing I noticed throughout the entire interview is that this guy only has stories that make him look good (all while he's trying to pretend to be humble about it), so I'd take everything he says with a lot of saltLike there is this, the story about how he was a better translator than the translator, Nakayama being nice to him when he's mean to everyone else, etc etc etc the entire interview is always like "I was the best employee even though I didn't know what I was doing haha"
>>12605621> "I was the best employee even though I didn't know what I was doing haha"also>BTW did you know I named the Gear-to-Gear cable?! Yep! I did that ! That was my contribution to Sega! The Gear-to-Gear Cable yep I named it! That was ALL me!if he was the employee of the month every month how come this giant piece of nothing burger is what he's the most proud of? I don't trust this guy
>>12605540When does he become "Shadow Balan"?
>>12605559this reads like jaded programmer cope
>>12605559These are all valid questions when they come from someone who has a proven track record with a consistent lineup of hits instead of one franchise where their input was just>LOL use one button controls>and uhh you know, pinball physics might be kinda cool!
Oh it's that anon with the Yuji Naka Derangement Syndrome again
This threads gunna be gud
>>12605559>person in charge of listening to customers tells creator what customers want>NONONO FUCKAUUUUU
>What eventually happened was that the market peaked, and Super Nintendo came out. It became more competitive, and at the same time, the Japanese domestic market had fallen even further. There was more pressure on the U.S. and Europe to to perform. I just remember there was one time where Tom, Shinobu, and the team came in, and they did their forecast. Nakayama wanted them to reach some number. I don’t remember which, but it was some fantastically higher number, and Tom was like, “That would be like, 70% market share versus Nintendo, based on the market growth projections that we have, and those growth projections are pretty pretty robust,” and Nakayama, of course walked out after he gave his missive, and Sakurai-san and the others were sort of left to clean up. They’re just like, “Well, you’re just going to have to hustle a lot harder.”The sheer fucking arrogance of SoJ>yeah the mega drive is blowing asshole here in japan so you're going to have to work harder over there in america :^)
>>12605617Balan Wonderworld
>>12605559>Completely valid questions.The guy delivered the Game Gear and Pico though. How many hardware did Naka deliver?
>>12605664My favourite part is where he mentions that SOJ treated SOA as another company they could force to buy their content, to get in the green. Like, they wanted Sega CD discs to be manufactured in japan and shipped over, instead of being made in the USA to begin with.It puts SOA losing millions in excess console stockpile into a much different context. They had that extreme stockpile because SOJ forced them to buy it all from them, and they couldn't say no because it was their parent company ordering them to do it.Seems like Sega was fucked way before the 32x came to be, and surprise surprise, it wasn't the fault of Tom Kalinske.>>12605626>>12605621The only things he points out is that the japs were full of themselves and considered him a stupid gaijin who should shut the fuck up, and then they got fucked for it. Which makes a lot of sense when you consider that the Mega Drive never sold shit in Japan, and also coincides with the incredible arrogancy Japanese look at westerners with. And there are so many other stories from SOJ telling this same arrogance.>Like there is this, the story about how he was a better translator than the translator, He admits that he only just about managed to translate things because they explicitly talked about things he knew.>>12605636More importantly the guy was the main coder for Sonic Team games, and all of their games are known to have horrible shoddy programming with collision bugs and camera being unable to follow the player properly. Everything from the first Sonic game to Sonic Adventure had those problems. So he really doesn't have a right to brag.Wanting to name Billy Hatcher as "Giant Cock" is also hilarious.
>>12605540>yelling at me, saying I wanted to make porno games.wow. an american being offended after going to another country and telling the japanese what to do? you know.. the same people that nuked the japs twice? interesting. I wonder why Naka or other japs don't have much time for them? such a mystery.
Butthurt weebs in denial
>>12605761Damn I didn't know SoA personally nuked Hiroshima and Nakadashi back in 1945
>>12605761He didn't though, he just told them the market directions, and that their games don't fit them.I mean, look at which game sold more, Grand Theft Auto or Sonic Adventure.
Sounds like little Mikey Boy couldn't handle the chad.
>>12605772> he just told them the market directions,they don't need marketing directions from the americans>Grand Theft Auto>a game made in the UKNot american>>12605792It's usual story of faggots writing shit years after the fact where naka isn't around to defend himself. probably also doesn't give a fuck because chads don't care.
>>12605792Lel
>>12605792>>12605803>virtually everyone that has had interactions with naka over the decades have called him an asshole>"LE BASED LE BASED LE BASED!!!!!!!!!!!!"you will never be japanese
>the accepted narrative for years in the West was that SoA were the good guys >info comes out in recent years that corrects the record and reveals that SoA were fucking retards that killed SEGA >suddenly a new interview by a SoA exec saying how the Japanese were totally the bad guys and SoA dindu nuffinIt's such a fucking obvious and pathetic attempt, lmaooo
>>12605761Why would he be retarded enough to think that meant porn games?
>>12605540How is Naka a pussy if he tried to fuck with the corpo system by profit off internal knowledge of Square-Enix? Like, are you stupid or just retarded?Wise up.
>>12605803>they don't need marketing directions from the americansYeah, we all know how well SOJ did on their own. Remind me again, did they even manage to break double digit market share with the Megadrive?>Not americanStill outsold Sonic Adventure.>naka isn't around to defend himself.Multiple people have been calling him an asshole for 20+ years now, which he also proved by his own actions like airbrushing people out of his photos stalin style, and, you know, becoming a convicted felon. If he is not around to defend himself it's because he is no longer a trustworthy source.
>>12605852He is a pussy because he failed and got caught.
>>12605856Naka took a real risk fucking with the system via insider trading. That's not pussy behavior.
>>12605540>>12605854>>12605849>>12605806
>>12605540Holy shit Naka is a fucking chad. SoA kneels before his chad NAKACOCK.
>>12605540>Foam at the corners of his mouthBased meth head nipponjin f'n LOSES IT on American Jew Piggu.
>>12605607>The rollerblading characterThis is how much Sega of America cared about their product
>>12605865/thread
>>12605865Holy kek
>>12605948rollerblades were popular in the early 90s.
>>12605865Based
>>12605865lel, I bet he's also the OP of this thread
>nobody who ever worked with him had anything nice to say about Naka>but actually those are all lies because they go against my SoA Bad, SoJ Good narrative!Lmao
>>12605540Ohshima is the true creator of Sonic, Sonic CD is the true sequel to the original sonic, Pussy Naka is a faggot and should've been locked behind bars and the key thrown away.
>>12605865>>12605870Naka's neo vagina was leaking because people care more about Oshima, the true creator of sonic.
>>12605540Someone should just follow this nigga around for a year with a camera and let him rant anything on his mind, it would be the greatest documentary since koyaanisqatsi
They should've let Yuji Naka release Billy Hatcher as "Giant Cock". It would've been hilarious.
>>12605865Haha, epic maymay! Unfortunately, the history books are already written and the Genesis was a huge success, whilst the Mega Drive was a huge flop in Japan. Had the arrogance and stupidity of Naka and his fellow micropenis owners not won out and they'd listened to the White man, maybe good video games would still be a thing today.
>>12605559Agree. Naka sounds like he went off the deep end about it but he wasn't wrong.
>>12605540let me guess you want me to start giving a fuck about Enron again?
Are there actual Japanese sources on SoJ-SoA relations in the 90s? Everything I've read is Americans saying the Japanese ruined everything but I care more about the opinions of people who actually made good video games.
>>12605865Is it supposed to be funny because the opposite happened and sega was extremely successful in west and Nintendo's bitch in japan?
>>12606329Then sega is not the company for you.
>>12606329It doesn't take much to look what happened and correlate with the interviews. SEGA made (and make) disastrous choice one after another and its kinda miracle the name is out there today.
>>12606329Japanese are honoroubru samurai and are thought to never say anything bad about their masters. You'll never find a single source saying that SOJ fucked up because that would be admitting that their superiors were not perfect, and that's deeply shameful. And this fits like 99% of the SOJ narrative.They even have this habit, where if a man was ambitious and fucked up, they put him in a position where he can't do anything meaningful. The idea is the guy would then have to leave himself, which will then put the shame on him. This is done instead of firing him, which would then put the shame on his superiors. They did this to Yu Suzuki for his single one blunder of Shenmue, despite him making Virtua Fighter prior, which was the #1 most popular game in Japan and was single handedly responsible for the Saturn outselling Nintendo consoles.All of that is besides the point: this is a guy who worked at SOJ. So, he is a SOJ source. But I imagine you are a weeb fanboy at this point, and will ignore everything he says because it does not fit the narrative in your head.And yes, I did enjoy typing up all of this, I was drinking wine and eating white chocolate while doing so.
>>12606329It's fun to point fingers but all signs point toward it being a dual-retard operation.
>>12606458>It's fun to point fingers but all signs point toward it being a dual-retard operation.Between 1990 to 1993, when Sega of America got a free hand, they went from no market share to 60% market share. Once Sega of Japan started reining them in, they got back to zero market share.Honestly it sounds like Japan was the only retard here.
The only one who say there was war between SOJ and SOA is Kalinske All the other SOA staff said there was no animosity
>>12605540Go ‘F*** yourself
>>12606764lel, I understood that reference.
Quick list of good and bad things by Yuji Naka:>The goodHelped salvage projects in development hell, like Phantasy Star or Sega's planned ports for Chiki Chiki Boys, Ghouls 'N Ghosts, Street Fighter II...Fought to have his team credited in Sonic 1 and hid the credits: put himself first of course, but credited Yasahura second, and then Ohshima, Ishitawari, Rieko Kodama, and the sound team>Famitsu (November 2018): Hahaha (laughs). Was there anyone who struck you as particularly amazing?>Rieko Kodama: Without a doubt, Yuji Naka. As someone who knew absolutely nothing about programming, I would go so far as to ask him to do this or that for the design.>And he, for his part, did his absolute best to make it happen. I have very vivid memories of Phantasy Star.>Even after the design work was finished, Yuji Naka said he wanted to include an image with all the characters together—he said it would make the players happy!>(1993) —Why did you choose the Phantasy Star title? Did it simply mean something like “a planet/star of fantasy”?>Morimoto: That’s basically right, but the origin was different. The main programmer, Yuji Naka, was a fan of the idol singer Noripii (Noriko Sakai), and her liked her new song “Nagisa no Fantasy” (Beachside Fantasy). From that he took the word Fantasy, and played around with it till he came up with Phantasy Star. It ultimately ended up matching the image of the game.
>>12606815>Shibata: You originally scrolled through the 3D dungeons in Phantasy Star much quicker. But we couldn’t have done them in 3D without Yuji Naka.>Kodama: Regarding the 3D, we would get an image of the dungeon in our head and draw them out on paper, but there were little details that bugged us and it wasn’t getting across to the programmers as we had envisioned it. Yuji Naka learned of this and, on his own, made a wireframe 3D imaging program expressly for us. That program was also the start of Shibata learning to draw 3D graphics.>That was what was amazing about Yuji: he would never just say “that can’t be done” to a planning or design idea. He thought about our wishes seriously and would always figure out some ingenuous way to make our ideas possible. He was very considerate of the designer’s vision, in other words.>Hayashida: Right, and it was Yuji who fixed the speed of the dungeons. The scrolling was originally so fast they made your head spin, like some high-speed STG.According to Mike Fischer, SOA Product Manager VP:>I will say one of the few redeeming stories I’ve heard about Naka was he became aware that there was this team of pirates in China that was taking his Dreamcast games and making bootleg versions for PlayStation. So, he bought their company and hired them to do all of his porting work.That's probably Sega Shangai who were notably credited foe the PS2 port of Nights into Dreams, and also PC ports of Sonic Adventure 2, Sonic 4 Episode 2 and possibly a bunch of other uncredited things.The poor collision detection in Sonic games isn't his fault probably, the level designer and artists were tweaking the level and plugging glitched tiles by hand.Now for the bad...
>>12606829>the PS2 port of Nights into DreamsYou mean the port that was widely considered as a horrible botch job?>The poor collision detection in Sonic games isn't his fault probably, the level designer and artists were tweaking the level and plugging glitched tiles by hand.If the engine can't handle the collision of the level design, that's entirely the fault of the programmer being inept, not the level designers.
>>12606829Yuji Naka was a tyrannical arrogant asshole snake from his earliest days.Some said he was just protecting his position in the company, but his behavior was beyond the pale even by Japanese standards.>(1991) Naka was dissatisfied at Sega, feeling he received little credit for the success, and quit.He admitted he visited Nintendo's HQ then and was waiting for companies to call him.Then he received calls from Sega of Japan AND Mark Cerny from STI (Sega of America) begging him to rejoin, and then asked for a new Ferrari.The joint development of Sonic 2 was a disaster, with more than half of the planned content getting scrapped.Mark Cerny gives a much more charitable read for how Yuji Naka is underappreciated, and how Sega of America is to blame in part for the chaotic timeline (they said Kid Chameleon and Sonic 1 is enough, and they don't need Sonic 2 yet, yet changed their tune just two months later in panic, they also didn't prepare the developer visas in time) but he quit STI himself after Sonic 2.The other developers at STI...>The artist Craig Stitt described Naka as "an arrogant pain in the ass" who was not interested in working with Americans.>Another artist, Tim Skelly, said that Naka would have been happier working with an all-Japanese team. ("It's like a Superman artist working with a mangaka")There's some rumors that he physically segregated where the Japanese and American employees work, and what they're allowed to see, significantly bottlenecking updates. For Sonic 3 & Knuckles the separation was more significant and barely anyone from the American side worked on it, and most of their concepts and unique games were scrapped. Many of them would join competitors like Sony. Yuji Naka allegedly heard from Naoto Ohshima about Sonic CD (without his involvement) and that was a significant reason for him to go back to Japan and "take back control".
>>12606895Among those quitting was Yasuhara, a significant part of the Japanese team at STI (Sega of America) who did game design for Sonic 1/2/3 and even Sonic 3D Blast (which was sidelined completely in Japan, and West-exclusive until a Japanese 1999 release on the Saturn) and contributed work for Sonic R, separate from the Yuji Naka-led Sonic Team pitches for Sonic 3D for the Saturn. With STI having nothing to work on for the Saturn (probably with a lot of it to do with Yuji Naka / Sega of America interference), Yasuhara quit and joined Sony.Yuji Naka then publicly insulted him in the game press. That's one known direct quote of Yuji Naka where he attributes the game design to himself rather than Yasuhara.>What do you think of the way the Sonic games have evolved; was it a problem when one of your team members left to work with Sony?>Yuji Naka: Yeah, one of the guys from our team went to work on Jak and Daxter! As for the original titles, I was involved from the beginning, the creation of the game. The character was born in a kind of stream of creating, so I'm involved from the very beginning of the character. I gave the game direction, and I was the main programmer also.>So I was involved with every aspect of the original Sonics. Some of the details, like making a map, quite straight-forward stuff, was done by the guy who's working on Jak and Daxter right now. He was involved until Sonic 3, and after that for eight years he didn't do anything in Sega, so he was quite useless in Sega. We really didn't need him. He was really doing nothing with Sonic.
>>12606898As for Ohshima, the story is more complicated.According to Ohshima himself, it was a collaborative design process between him and Naka, and Ohshima has the receipts.According to Fisher, Yuji Naka frequently harassed Ohshima and humiliated him in public, accusing him of hoarding the credit too much for himself. But that's exactly what Yuji Naka himself did. >Sega.com (1996): Did you have any idea at the time you first developed Sonic that he would become a huge success and the symbol for Sega? What do you think made Sonic so popular?>Yuji Naka: Originally, I wanted to create a character that would symbolize Sega. But to tell you the truth, I had no idea he would be so successful. At the time I was creating Sonic, most game characters had cute, flawless images - it was almost a stereotype. I wanted to create something completely different. I thought a more cool and speedy character with an attitude would be appreciated and recognized - especially by American users. I think Sonic helped to activate the gaming market. I strongly believe analyzing the market situation, advertising efficiency, and quality of the games are the primary factors for success.>Sega.com: How did Tails, Knuckles and Dr. Robotnik get developed?>Yuji Naka: Robotnik was created to be the opposite of Sonic, and to be the bad guy. At that time, there was opposition between "developers" and "environmentalists", and Robotnik was created to represent machinery and development. As far as design, Mr. Oshima (the team member in charge of character designs) was trying to create something easy enough so that kids would be able to draw the characters. That's why the rotund character was created. For Sonic The Hedgehog 2, Mr. Yamaguchi, the main designer, created Tails, a character who has a deep admiration for Sonic. Knuckles was created to be a rival for Sonic. We went through many different design ideas, and decided to use the particular characteristic style you see in Knuckles.
>>12606898>>12606902So he hates the other co-creators of Sonic. That's pretty sad.
>>12606071>>12606065i think i heard about this a while ago and completely forgot. tf
>>12606902And then he literally erased Ohshima by photoshopping him out of a Sonic-related group photo he shared on Twitter around 2022 during his nuclear meltdown after the Balan Wonderworld lawsuit.Yuji Naka also attributed Cream's character design to himself, alleging she was created for Heroes originally. Assuming she was designed by the prestigious Sonic Team rather than the lesser Dimps, the credit wouldn't go to Naka either way.https://x.com/AdriWindGB/status/2060940036464320778Allegedly, according to Sega of America staff, Yuji Naka threatened to quit if materials from the Nights engine were shared with Sega of America for their Sonic projects. Yuji Naka denied this explicitly, saying the way it was coded wasn't reusable, which is kind of bullshit but even besides that excuse Sonic Team at Japan were indeed working on a 3D Sonic for the Saturn. But Chris Senn agrees, at least for his Xtreme prototype.Yet, that doesn't change that Sega didn't use some of the (multiple) western teams' finished 3D Sonic work that already works on Saturn, for either Sonic 3D Blast or Sonic Jam.>Naka did not have any desire to develop for the 32X, and was disappointed that the Saturn was not true 3D. Observing the development environment he did not want to make a Sonic game right away, and instead created Nights. He persuaded his superiors that Nights would only take one year and that he would work on a 3D Sonic in 1997. However, the development took longer than expected.Naka was initially candid about his role in the mess (SoJ also frequently admit that transition was a "mistake" but that they'll refrain from blaming anyone because hindsight is always correct, in their videos about "the history of sega") but when denying the engine anecdote in 2022 he says "it must be a way to excuse THEIR failure".
>>12606942More credibly, Yuji Naka went to an american developer preparing a DreamCast Star Fox ripoff exclusive with cutting edge graphics, and was speaking in Japanese in front of them how he'll steal their tech and fire them all except for one guy to keep as a low-profile code monkey. They understandably quit and Sega lost massively.>In 1998, prior to the launch of Dreamcast, Naka and his team visited Sega of America to tour their development offices and observe their work on the game Geist Force, a rail shooter for Dreamcast. According to the producer Mark Subotnick, Naka told his team in Japanese which parts they would take to incorporate in Sonic games and suggested firing all but one of the engineers. Unbeknownst to Naka, several of the Geist Force developers understood Japanese and quit, contributing to the project's cancellation.3D Sonic games by Sonic Team were a revolving door of talent drain constantly quitting under the brilliant producer Yuji Naka.>It is reported that after Okawa (Phantasy Star Online) became ill in 2000, Naka would send reports to the hospital, updating him on the team's progress.Eventually, he accepted an impossible exclusivity deal for Sony and Microsoft wanting a 2006 Winter Sonic game and Nintendo also wanting it, split the development team in half, then QUIT and left them to deal with his mess.He then founded Prope. Similarly to Keiji Inafune, he did a cameo in some Sega-themed anime show that had some cult of personality character dedicated to him.He did ONE game for Nintendo (Wii Play: Motion), and a couple games for Sega, saying "while it was uncommon in the west, he maintained a strong relationship with the company despite his departure." Sega eventually stopped (why?) and rejected Ivy the Kiwi, so he shopped it around elsewhere.Kadokawa also refused to publish the finished Rodea for Wii (why?) and started developing their own version without Naka's involvment.He did ship some Digimon games successfully thou
>>12605540Pussy?Sounds like Naka put that know-nothing middle manager in his fuckin' place.
>>12606959And then Yuji Naka sneaked his way into Square Enix, the way similarly disgraced executives did (the FGO guys, the Tales producer) and Naoto Ohshima (who's effectively Arzest, which he founded) announced alongside him Balan's Wonderwold, which was supposed to be a multimedia franchise with many sequels.There's a lot that has been said about that, but the key takeaways were that Yuji Naka never stopped his credit stealing manners. I clearly remember interviews where he said he was the main writer behind the game and that he studied story templates like the hero's journey... At first I thought that the team decision to make the story minimal ingame and moved to the novel was to remove his parts from the game, but not even that was HIS credit, the story was instead by novelist Soushi Kawasaki.He then made a huge deal on twitter that Square Enix and Arzest hate him because "he insisted on crediting" fan artists and composers who were mistakenly used for some initial PR retweets he blew out of proportion. But that might be him just trying to get ahead of his credit thieving antics to turn it into his word against theirs.The court documents were more damning. Yuji Naka supposedly wanted to have Arzest work two months for free as punition, was tyrannical, had gameplay demands that went beyond what could be explained by Arzest's usual jank (like the weird control scheme), was livid that the team was licking their wounds and rallying around another higher-up that gave them a morale speech after Yuji Naka was sidelined from the project and started attacking him on twitter, and then started delegitimizing Naoto Ohshima's legacy and personally banning and hiding every single reply mentioning him.Square Enix and Arzest were furious and fed up with his frivolous lawsuits against them, so they countersued him for insider trading charges related to Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy. First thing after the long silence? Attack the Dragon Quest producer.
>>12606993So the thing with SoA ex-employees is that they'll be either overly corteous, or overly self-aggrandizing which in turn requires a scapegoat for their idiocy, which Sega of Japan provides since they never talk back (until recently, that is).SoA is a massively incompetent branch that was very irresponsible with hardware orders, investments, development project, accounting, and cash in general. Their refusal to localize Sega Megadrive, Sega CD, and Sega Saturn games was beyond the pale when these consoles were facing software droughts (even for their own Sega Channel project or their extended 1997 Genesis support) and when they were actively stalling alternative arrangements for Sega or third party publishers to have someone else publish these games overseas.Sega of Japan were arrogant and high on their superstar persona hubris.>Honeywood (Xenogears localizer)>I've heard you also previously applied to Sega to be part of the Sega Rally team. What happened there?>Honeywood: That was probably the most batshit crazy thing that's ever happened to me. [...] >From what I remember, he said something like, 'You're Australian... Australians think nothing but sunbathing and taking time off work. The Japanese are farmers. They work really hard.' I was thinking, 'Where is this going?' Then, the next line I remember he said was something like, 'When I worked with Michael Jackson, he said that Sega games are like his hit records.' He went on this long spiel for a good 30 minutes, and during it all, I was trying to get it back to interview questions, saying things like, 'I've got these skills,' but he was having none of it. Then, after the 30 minutes were up, he just stood up and said, 'Well, come back and do your best,' and walked out of the room.>'What happens now?' She said, 'I don't know,' and walked me out of the building. And I was just left wondering, 'What the hell has just happened?'But Naka (and Nagoshi) did interviews confirming they're assholes.
>>12607008>SoA is a massively incompetent branch that was very irresponsible with hardware orders, investments, development project, accounting, and cash in general.Except that this new interview paints all of that in a different context. SoA was obliged to do anything SoJ ordered them to, and SoJ treated them as a separate entity to whom they could sell titles and consider it profit. The reason SoA had millions of consoles unsold, is because SoJ had completely unrealistic expectations about what they could sell. The American branch were effectively forced to buy millions of units they could not sell, because Japan forced them to buy it. This made SoJ look better (more sales made), and made SoA look incompetent (had too much unsold inventory).>Their refusal to localize Sega Megadrive, Sega CD, and Sega Saturn gamesThey localized plenty of Genesis and Sega CD titles. It's only with the Saturn that they refused to, but by that time they had no autonomy, Japan was calling the shots, and they told Japan to not localize anything and prepare developers for their next console instead.
Why would anyone unironcally defend this piece of shit retard? He is not even the real creator of Sonic.
>>12607010Do you get paid by Kalinske to spread such lies?https://forums.sonicretro.org/threads/tom-kalinske-explains-why-he-left-sega-of-america-time-extension.41451/ this guy is a fraud
>>12605559/threadEvery time I read more by the SoA guys, the more I realize Sega of Japan were the good guys (at least they made the fucking consoles and games!)
>>12607010>Except that this new interview paints all of that in a different context.Not really, it's just the same hyperbole nonsense you always get from former Sega of America employees.>The reason SoA had millions of consoles unsold, is because SoJ had completely unrealistic expectations about what they could sell. I highly doubt that was all Sega of Japan. Remember Sega of Japan sent Irimajiri out to Sega of America to discuss transitioning to Saturn in 1993, Sega of America told them they wanted to stick with the Genesis then. So all Sega of Japan knows is that Sega of America told them they want to stick with the Genesis and the Genesis was still going strong. The reality is that Sega of America misread the market and didn't realize they were on the verge of seeing the 16-bit market collapse, which it did in 1994-1995. It was really bad misread of the market by Sega of America that lead to that situation. And they apparently didn't learn either as they were still ordering stupid amounts of 3 Button Genesis controllers as late as 1996, long after the 6 button controller came out.
>>12607031>Not really, it's just the same hyperbole nonsense you always get from former Sega of America employees.Two things to consider:1. this time it's coming from a Sega of Japan employee2. every Sega of America employee says this exact same thing, that the Japan side was being dumb. Every time we get a new interview from the western side, they are making Sega of Japan looking not just bad but outright stupid and arrogant, every single time. Either there's a 35+ year long agreement with every single Sega employee to spread lies, which is not only a crazy thought, but also would be impossible to keep up with after so many years. Or they are all just saying the truth.>The reality is that Sega of America misread the market and didn't realize they were on the verge of seeing the 16-bit market collapse, which it did in 1994-1995. The 16-bit market in North America was doing fine in 94-95. In 1994 the only thing to take away from it was the Jaguar and 3DO and we all know how well those did, and the next-gen launches in 1995 were small blips on the radar: a sign of things to come, but did not outweigh the 20+ million install base of 16-bit consoles. It was 1996 when 32-bit consoles started becoming the hottest new products.So planning on the Genesis market in 1994 was not yet a big problem. If they would have managed to get a proper Saturn launch in 1995, it would've been fine, but the 32X and the early Saturn launch fucked up both.. and they were both mandated by Japan.>they were still ordering stupid amounts of 3 Button Genesis controllers as late as 1996The new interview just said that they were forced to buy whatever stock Japan forced on them, and if it was an impossible number of items, they'd just have to "hustle more". The Japan side was completely fucking retarded and forced SOA with them.
>>12607023>sonic retro linkso, confirmed bullshit.
https://mdshock.com/2022/05/09/a-second-atari-shock-the-decline-of-the-16-bit-console-era/>“The wave that brought us here was huge, but the tide has turned very quickly,” said Sega director Shunichi Nakamura in reference to the state of the 16-bit console market in Europe. At its peak in 1993, Sega’s revenue in Europe was about ¥60 billion, but now it has shrunk to one-third of that, around ¥20 billion.>In the fiscal period ending in March 1995, Konami took an extraordinary loss of ¥11.6 billion due to clearing out unsold inventory. During the same period, Capcom took a loss of ¥7.5 billion after writing down the value of its American subsidiary, and in the mid-year period ending in September 1995, Nintendo also took a loss of ¥9.8 billion after doing the same with its American subsidiary. This fiscal year, Sega is taking an extraordinary loss of ¥26 billion due to the downsizing of its American and European subsidiaries and due to the disposal of unsold inventory.>“It’s true that 16-bit consoles sold quite well and we were able to sell off a good portion of our inventory, but the games did not sell at all,” said Sega director Shunichi Nakamura. The best-selling game charts for the past few weeks in North America reveal that almost all of the top titles are for Sony’s PlayStation console. Games for Nintendo’s SNES console, which has sold over 30 million units—far more than the PlayStation—have disappeared from the best-selling charts.>According to Sega’s Nakamura, “Through large-scale mass production, Sega has been able to reduce the manufacturing costs of its 16-bit console to the point where we aren’t losing money on production. However, we can’t earn a profit because the software—the most essential part—is just not selling.Those morons of Sega america really destroyed Sega
>>12605865ROFL
>>12607141Revisionists who try to pretend like "actually the decision makers were dumbasses for not bringing over 2D games" or "actually there was no such thing as anti 2D biais during the 5th gen / or if there was it was only reviewers who were not in lign with what customers wanted"; should all read this article. The numbers speak for themselves. People didn't want this stuff anymore even before the 5th gen released, and it was a global phenomenom.With that said clearing out unsold stock also means stores were making space for the next gen consolesThe other factor that you're omitting from quotes is this>As in Europe, the decline of the 16-bit market in North America has been very rapid. On December 26 of last year, the Wall Street Journal reported that “the previous generation of 16-bit consoles still commands the sales battle.” Nintendo and Sega’s 16-bit consoles were reported to have sold more than four times as much as Sony and Sega’s 32-bit consoles.Translation: by christmas 1994, prices of 16 bit consoles would have decreased and poorfags were buying them. They would also have access to a SHIT TON of used games by that point and you can bet your ass stores would prefer selling those.another important quote that you missed>Sega president Hayao Nakayama announced at the beginning of the year, “We are planning to increase our arcade game division by a factor of three to a revenue scale of ¥350 billion.” The plan is to greatly increase the relatively stable income of the arcade division in order to absorb the risk of the home console division.Another thing revisionnists that "want to save [Sega]" don't understand. In 1995, this arcade plan made a lot of sense.
>>12607141>Those morons of Sega america really destroyed Segathey were absolute clowns. It's amazing how anyone would ever dream of defending them and their disturbing clown show. CSK, Sega's parent corporation at the time, had given the americans far too much independence to do whatever they liked. CSK thought it'd be a splendid idea to create a software development house for SoA called "SegaSoft", were given permission to make games for any system they liked.SoA decided:>yep. PC and Saturn is all we'll needSegaSoft USA was defunct several years later
>>12605664I bet there were plenty of business meetings where somebody pointed out that Sega was peripheric in Japan. They're probably still thinking of a comeback to this day.
>>12606993>was livid that the team was licking their wounds and rallying around another higher-up that gave them a morale speech after Yuji Naka was sidelined from the project and started attacking him on twitter, Da fuck? Any links to those?
>>12607141Funny how the entire interview is under the angle "SoJ bad! SoA more successfull!" but also fails to mention how successfull Sega was in the arcade, or that SoA was very dependant on SoJ's games for success
>>12608038The infamous meltdown thread.https://x.com/nakayuji/status/1519648947932860416> About half a year before Balan Wonderworld was due to be released, a work order was made to remove me as director, so I took Square Enix to court to appeal it. The trial is over and the work order has now expired, so I would like to talk about it.> I think Square Enix are bad for not respecting games or valuing their fans. According to the trial documents, I was removed as director based on two points. This was carried out by the producer, marketing director, sound director, representative director and HR.> Another point in the trial documents: I pointed out that bugs* had shown up during development, and Arzest had presented the game without fixing them, and I had made other comments intended to improve the game. The producer, Fujimoto, had complained to Ohshima that this had damaged the relationship with Arzest.> One more thing, Ohshima had sent a mail to Fujimoto saying "I just assembled the staff and told them we were delaying the demo. 'This decision was made by Mr Fujimoto. Please continue working hard for Mr Fujimoto's sake.' The staff then cheered and clapped. It was unexpected so they were very moved. It infused new energy into a team that was low on morale, and they really thanked us and kept working hard."This was weird to me, because the schedule is set by the producer, not me. The producer was the reason that it was so right in the first place. Isn't something off here?This was the part where Yuji Naka tries to make himself look better.His co-workers' statements were to the courts, then leaked to the media.> Allegedly gave strict orders to the team & Balan Wonderworld co-developer (Arzest)> Demanded staff work weekends> Wanted a 1-2 month delay & have Arzest do it for free> Accused of power harassment through email
>>12607379Me thinks it's a combo of the SoJ being high off their farts thinking they're too big to fail until it was too late (which the ex-SoA interviews embellish to make themselves look better, but the hubris was very real), a rogue diva Yuji Naka shooing off talent left and right and playing a big part in the delay of Sonic Team's Saturn Sonic game to 1997, an equally rogue Sega of America, corporate espionage by Microsoft (that Windows CE OS for the Saturn), possibly related inside sabotage by Bernie Stolar who really bled them dry from winter 1996 until september 99 all the while allowing zero backup plans), and Sony paying off game journalists and publishers strategically to destroy the perception of the DreamCast (and Nintendo consoles as well for that matter, and Nintendo threatened to retaliate in court and actually did against Tear Ring Saga, published by the same organization as Famitsu).Yuji Naka disingenuously wailing that T-rated and M-rated games is akin to publishing porn on Sega when presented with market research from Sega of America around the DreamCast release is ludicrous but exactly his kind of thing, considering (1) they're not necessarily porn (2) Sega themselves got the go-ahead to publish porn either from the Japanese side (as seen on the Saturn) or the American side (as seen from their expensive FMV project around the Saturn which was cancelled with zero releases around 97).But the reason why SoJ's lack of marketing acumen is really brought up by ex-SoA is to protect their laughable narrative that their extra-delayed 9/9/99 launch was the most successful marketing event in history, and not a needlessly delayed launch after a needless software drought (or refusal to print or market enough copies even when the software IS there in 1997/1998), or that SoA's marketing acumen was so bad they paused development for Sonic 2 because they didn't foresee demand or need for it, only to panic months later and that was their "success story".
>>12605540Yuji Caca is much superior wordplay. Do better
>>12608087>and Sony paying off game journalists and publishers strategically to destroy the perception of the DreamCastNever happened Dreamcast was universally praised by game journalist and the PS2 received pretty mixed reception in the beginning
>>12608087>ex-SoA interviews embellish to make themselves look betterWe have multiple interviews all doing the same thing, so either every single person in the company did it uniformly, which is unlikely because then there would be at least one outlier who is more honest and debunks these. It's more likely that they actually just did that good.I mean you can simply look at the sales numbers, they got 60% of the market away from Nintendo, so they did, in fact, do good.>an equally rogue Sega of AmericaRogue how? They kept giving Japan ideas on things to do, like using the N64 chipset or teaming up with Sony, or designing the Black Belt, Japan just didn't give a shit about any of that. Even the 32x started out as Nakayama asking them for new hardware to counter the Jaguar.About the only rogue thing they did was not jumping to 3D development early enough, and that was justifiable by the Saturn still being 2 years away at minimum, and the Genesis having more than enough steam.>inside sabotage by Bernie StolarJapan explicitly told them to prepare the market for the Dreamcast, which is why he said the Saturn was not their future, and refused to port too many games. Only sabotage I recall is launching the Dreamcast at $200 instead of $250.>T-rated and M-rated games is akin to publishing porn on SegaIt wasn't about publishing porn games (which they did on the Saturn), it was about MAKING porn games in-house, which I can understand he did not want to. And I think there was some translation issues there, he may have mistaken the ESRB "Mature" rating for mature pornography: we know now he had crap english skills and he'd have no reason to know about western rating systems in Japan.>to protect their laughable narrative that their extra-delayed 9/9/99 launch was the most successful marketing event in historyIt literally made it to the Guiness Book of Records as the most successful console launch in history. This is not a narrative, it is a fact.
>>12608061>but also fails to mention how successfull Sega was in the arcade,The guy was on the console games devision.>or that SoA was very dependant on SoJ's games for successNot as much as you present it since SoA was wise enough to realize they need to make their own games to better suit the US market. Yes, they did need SoJ's titles, but even Sonic 2 was made in the USA.On the other hand, the Mega Drive was selling so badly in Japan that if one of SoJ's games did not appeal to american trends (because the authors did not even bother describing it properly for the executive in charge of presenting it to the american branch), it could get cancelled.So outside of Sonic, the game dependency was at the very least a symbiotic relationship.
>>12605664>>12605727>>12606440>>12606580Reading your posts is embarrassing to me as a White man. It reeks of a racial inferior complex towards the Japanese so your entire narrative hinges on anti-Japanese bias coupled with hypocrisies and gay exaggerations. It does nothing to elevate Americans. Rather, its like watching an Indian trying to gloat about the time they totally "beat" the British during the time of the empire. Its cringeworthy. I can only cope that you aren't Europeans, but third worlders too be engaging in the same behavior. Tom Kalinske is a retard who manufactured so much Sega Genesis under the rather foolish idea that Sega can stay with the Genesis for years after 1995, that resellers had to sell Sega back large amount of inventory. A repeat performance with his tenure with He-Man btw. Sega of America cocksuckers like to pretend getting a large marketshare in a year is impressive, but is it really when it rapidly drop-off as the SNES quickly gains grounds. What about all those ventures Sega of America threw money at which all failed?From what I read, Sega was never a well ran company to begin with.
>>12608312Ah yes, all those great shit tier American games. Imagine an industry with only American games, they either cause an industry crash (Atari) or create a dull and lame period such as the early 2010s era.
Somewhere in Japan there are people saying Sega of American was fucked up and had no idea what they were doing because they asked Sega of Japan to make porn games. And it's a known fact because it's corroborated by several employees remembering the same thing or having their higher ups telling them so.
>>12605540Oh shit, he went full dark balan right then and there.
>>12608328>Sega was never a well ran company to begin with.It was run well enough to survive complete ruin and had people involved in the company that didn't want it to die so it continues living via the merger with sammy>>12608369>had no idea what they were doing because they asked Sega of Japan to make porn games.lol. one thing that isn't mentioned is that during late 80s and early 90s japan's government regulators and standards groups like JAMMA were getting very upset over the increasing amount of adult content finding its way into arcades and consoles used by kids. (the drama caused some arcade manufacturers to leave JAMMA - Nichibutsu being a notable manufacturer leaving due to its adult mahjong games). Sega would have been frightened to death of any proposal that would been seen as too adult/mature etc. Not that I believe for a moment the events OP posted happed - at all.
>>12608328>your entire narrative hinges on anti-Japanese biasThis is not bias but a fact: SoA understood the 16-bit market far better, as evidenced by them outselling Nintendo, while in Japan the Megadrive was largely irrelevant.>Tom Kalinske is a retard who manufactured so much Sega Genesis This latest interview mentions that Nakayama specifically forced Kalinske to manufacture more consoles, and to achieve a market share he warned would be too high to be realistic. Nakayama gave him the excess stock, and SoA, as a subsidiary, could not be allowed to say no. The excess stock of 16-bit consoles was therefore directly Sega of Japans fault - and it makes sense that Kalinske then wanted to stick with the 16-bit market for so long, they had to sell all those consoles they were forced to buy from Japan.>What about all those ventures Sega of America threw money at which all failed?Every company always throws money into various ventures, it's called R&D. Japan had a lot of their own failed ventures too, they built entire sprite-based arcade boards for a single game at a time when 3D hardware and exchangeable game boards were the norm, they built excessive cabs like the R360, and so on. Hell I could even mention Shenmue which was a blunder measured in tens of millions of dollars.>Sega of America cocksuckers like to pretend getting a large marketshare in a year is impressive, but is it really when it rapidly drop-off as the SNES quickly gains grounds.It is a feat that no other company in a decade managed to achieve, including Sega of Japan themselves.
>>12608328you will never be japanese btw
>>12608328ur brown def 2smart2b black tho. just my 2 cents
>>12605865>wojakapply yourself.
Yuji "Gajin rapist" Naka
I, for one, enjoy seeing segoys seethe to this day. Makes me happy to see such sore losers incapable of moving on. Both branches are at fault by the way, the americans made the mistake of preemptively time locking the brand's image thinking tastes would never change while the japs didn't give a single fuck about looking for ways to exploit the markets were they were relevant. No wonder they were unable to make a single piece of hardware that made sense after the Genesis
>>12608831>the americans made the mistake of preemptively time locking the brand's image thinking tastes would never changeYeah but now we know this happened because Japan pushed extra consoles on them to sell, expecting to push up to 70% market share, so they had to keep the 16-bit gravy train rolling or else they'd be in the red. Which is what happened in the end.
>>12608831>>12608836>when your schizophrenia is this severe>just make up complete nonsense and reply to yourself
>>12608468>and SoA, as a subsidiary, could not be allowed to say no.That's a reinvention of history from a fucking idiot. SoA were mostly independent from SoJ due to the arrangement they had with the parent company CSK. This inventory problem happened during a time when they were all competing against the playstation. not before it. and everyone had unsold inventory. sega, nintendo, various game publishers with millions of dollars of unsold software and hardware had to write off millions off dollars. Sega happened to have the most unsold inventory. Have a guess who was making the marketing decisions in the USA predicting sega could still sell 16-bit cancer? Wasn't the japs. It was a bunch of fat coping retards in America that managed to bullshit their way through life due to minimal oversight by CSK. It's as if no matter how many walls of text you write the Americans are still to blame for all the world's problems, especially sega's.
>>12608907>That's a reinvention of history from a fucking idiot.who happened to work at both sega of japan and sega of america so perhaps he knew things better than a bunch of weeaboo retards who are unwilling to accept anything that is different from what they believe in. I bet you also think that the stories about Nakayama treating his underlings like shit are all fake and made up.
>>12608884the interview in the OP literally confirms this but i get it, it's tough to deal with reality when it explicitly refutes your headcanon.
>>12609061yes but according to >>12608907, the interview in the OP is a historical reinvention from a fucking idiot.
>>12606963Seething weeb.
>>12609061>the interview in the OP literally confirms thisschizo nonsense posted by losers and failures of this website, created by other bigger failures that used to work for sega in america, aren't facts by any stretch of the imagination. it's a mental breakdown and attention seeking from hacks that nobody cares about and nobody remembers. only the dumbest of stupid fucking idiots would ever think op's post actually happened
>>12608925>who happened to work at both sega of japanNo. Anon is clearly referring to (You), The imbecile so dumb that you're posting AI generated slop and can't even defend any of it. You vomit up words and have no idea what they all mean when slapped together into a paragraph. I would wager the english language looks likes Egyptian hieroglyphs to you and you know the meaning of none of them.
>>12609717My favorite console, the Sega Cope.
>>12609412>I-IT'S FAKE IT'S NOT REALman it got to you deep huh? you're not even trying to come up with a good cope. but good news: you're halfway through the stages of grief. only one more to go (depression) before you finally accept the truth. unfortunately for you pathetic weebs that may take years.
>>12609412faggot. why are you gay?
>>12610138The interview is real, but interviews are not facts.
