Current Events > TIL: Yuji Naka inadvertently killed a promising Dreamcast launch title.

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2021/12/yuji-naka-killed-dreamcasts-star-fox-says-former-sega-producer

The devs were making a game called "Geist Force", which was described as a promising "Star Fox clone". When the game was about 70% done, Yuji Naka and his team visited the studio, examining the GF studio's state-of-the-art technology, and started taking amongst his team in Japanese about which of this tech they would take back for themselves to use on Sonic, and that once Geist Force was shipped, they would fire everyone except the one engineer who knew the most about the tech and fold them into Sonic Team. However, the GF studio's devs spoke fluent Japanese and were understandably upset about this, enough that all five lead engineers quit the team and with no way to salvage the project, the game was cancelled.

Even if Naka kept his mouth shut, unfortunately it sounds like the devs would not have had a good ending anyway, but at least the game would have made it out the door.

Wow Yuki Naka sounds like a douchebag

MC_BatCommander posted...

Wow Yuki Naka sounds like a douchebag

It doesn't help that Sega of Japan seemed to have open disdain for Sega of America. I would love to know about some of the closed door politics in that company because it seems mind-boggling how Sega allowed themselves to implode in part due to the home office actively sabotaging their satellite offices.

wtf

MC_BatCommander posted...

Wow Yuki Naka sounds like a douchebag

He's also extremely ethnocentrist. He disparaged the team making Sonic 2 relentlessly (an American team which included Mark Cerny), while talking up Sonic CD (being made by Sonic Team in Japan).

Sonic 2 is without question the better game by basically any metric other than OST.

Yuji Naka sucks.

Wasn't he partially responsible for there being no Sonic game on the Saturn?

CrimsonWaffle posted...

Wasn't he partially responsible for there being no Sonic game on the Saturn?

IIRC it was also a very similar situation. Something about the team developing the engine being jerked around because Yuji Naka was angry that foreigners were using something he developed until the whole project eventually collapsed when they were forced to write their own engine from the ground up halfway through development.

Damn. Sucks that the creator of Sonic is a racist scumbag

The team was using the NiGHTS engine to make a 3D Sonic title for Saturn, and apparently they were on track to meet the Holiday deadline when Naka declared that they had no right to use the engine, despite being the same damn company.

Can't find the original video I saw on it, but here's an article that at least confirms the story:
https://gamerant.com/sega-canceled-game-sonic-x-treme-trivia/

Sonic Team, which had moved on to make a new franchise, was working on another 3D game called NIGHTS into Dreams. To help speed up production, STI asked if they could borrow that games' engine. They were granted permission and worked along with it for a fortnight. However, that would end up being wasted time. When Yuji Naka found out they were using his engine without his permission, he threatened to leave the company unless STI relented.

Zikten posted...

Damn. Sucks that the creator of Sonic is a racist scumbag

To be brutally honest - Sonic became "Sonic" with Sonic 2. Sonic 1 was a proof of concept game with a lot of rough edges.

Sonic 2 was where it actually all came together. So if anyone deserves credit for Sonic as we understood him back then (the attitude, speed, etc) it's actually Mark Cerny and Naoto Ohshima.

What's fascinating is that Sonic CD was developed in Japan by the OG Sonic Team during the same time that Sonic 2 was developed in America by STI.

That's why Sonic CD seemingly has some ideas from Sonic 2 (Spin Dash) that are executed differently, and why the visuals actually look more like Sonic 1's style. Sonic CD's mechanics FEEL more like Sonic 1.

s0nicfan posted...

It doesn't help that Sega of Japan seemed to have open disdain for Sega of America. I would love to know about some of the closed door politics in that company because it seems mind-boggling how Sega allowed themselves to implode in part due to the home office actively sabotaging their satellite offices.

One of the more "fun" stories is about how Sonic Adventure 2 came out. It was pushed over to Sega of America to make, a branch that at the time only had 11 members. They then called over 3 members and left SA2 with 8 members working on the game. And with the budget it was given, or at least the budget that can be inferred, it meant that Adventures 2 was basically an indie game with the Sega logo.

ellis123 posted...

One of the more "fun" stories is about how Sonic Adventure 2 came out. It was pushed over to Sega of America to make, a branch that at the time only had 11 members. They then called over 3 members and left SA2 with 8 members working on the game. And with the budget it was given, or at least the budget that can be inferred, it meant that Adventures 2 was basically an indie game with the Sega logo.

I remember that Naka was later asked why Robotnik's face-turn at the end wasn't featured in later games, and his response was basically "it was stupid."

Now that context makes me think he was referring to them.

Funny how Sonic CD was a really poorly designed game (mechanically and in level design) but had excellent music and art that were handled by others.

Because that's exactly what happened with Balan Wonderworld.

And NiGHTS
And Sonic 1

Wow, this topic taught me a lot about the development of the early Sonic games. Interesting stuff here.

You either die a Sonic the Hedgehog producer, or live long enough to see yourself become the Balan Wonderworld director.

Master_Bass posted...

Wow, this topic taught me a lot about the development of the early Sonic games. Interesting stuff here.

There's something special about Sega's uniquely dysfunctional corporate culture that has created this fascinating history for them. Even the old Sonic games are some of the best examples of on-cartridge cut content revealing details about what could have been. Doing a deep dive into Sega is like the real world equivalent of wandering through a castle in dark souls and picking up all these little clues about just how bad things got and how it all fell apart.

s0nicfan posted...

There's something special about Sega's uniquely dysfunctional corporate culture that has created this fascinating history for them. Even the old Sonic games are some of the best examples of on-cartridge cut content revealing details about what could have been. Doing a deep dive into Sega is like the real world equivalent of wandering through a castle in dark souls and picking up all these little clues about just how bad things got and how it all fell apart.

Sega of America single-handedly kept their console business successful through brilliant marketing. But Sega of Japan straight-up backstabbing them by telling them to make the 32X and then announcing the Saturn right before launch was brutal.

i wonder where yuji naka's overconfidence came from, considering as he was responsible for way more turds than good games

what a douchebag

TwoDoorPC posted...

i wonder where yuji naka's overconfidence came from, considering as he was responsible for way more turds than good games

I guarantee either he saw other teams' success with Sonic as a byproduct of the "brilliance" of the character he created, or considered their work a result of his leadership, or both. He definitely seems like the kind of person to take credit for everybody's work because he created the character first.

He's like Tomonobu Itadagaki and Keiji Inafune - people who were carried by good studios.

TwoDoorPC posted...

i wonder where yuji naka's overconfidence came from, considering as he was responsible for way more turds than good games

That opportunism explained in post #1, obviously.

TwoDoorPC posted...

i wonder where yuji naka's overconfidence came from, considering as he was responsible for way more turds than good games

Back in the 90's there was a famous quote that never really got attributed to anyone in particular but was a general consensus across the corporate world in Japan: "If a video game is not made in Japan it's not going to be any good. If you want to play anything fun it has to be Japanese." While it isn't directly attributed to him, it is quite possible that he bought into the mind set (something that isn't exactly hard to see considering what is now known about him).

Another fun Sega story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8YNB4-k2E0

s0nicfan posted...

It doesn't help that Sega of Japan seemed to have open disdain for Sega of America. I would love to know about some of the closed door politics in that company because it seems mind-boggling how Sega allowed themselves to implode in part due to the home office actively sabotaging their satellite offices.

One reason why the original animated show never made it into a Sonic game (except Sonic Spinball, which made by Sega of America)

It's so crazy because Sega of America was raking in profits hand over fist compared to SoJ's constant self-inflicted losses.

CrimsonWaffle posted...

Wasn't he partially responsible for there being no Sonic game on the Saturn?

Sonic Xtreme was already in development hell. The head of Sega of America offered to get the NiGHTs engine to help development speed up, they worked with the engine for about 2 weeks before they had to stop because Naka didn't want the American team using their engine.