Yuji Naka officially sentenced to prison with four-year suspension
Posted on 9 months ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 0 comments
Original: A verdict has been reached in Yuji Naka’s insider trading case, and the game developer – known for his previous work on Sonic the Hedgehog and more recently Balan Wonderworld – has been sentenced to prison, but he is unlikely to serve time.
The courts made a final judgement today. The big part of the story is that Naka has been given a prison sentence of two years and six months. However, sine he’ll be seeing a four-year suspension, that should allow him to avoid jailtime. He has also been given a couple of fines of two million and 170 million yen.
Former Sonic Team head Yuji Naka arrested over insider trading
Posted on 10 months ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 0 comments
Original: Reports out of Japan indicate that Yuji Naka has been arrested by the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office. A case has been kicking around this week regarding insider trading, and it seems Naka is now involved.
It was already reported earlier today that Square Enix employee Taisuke Sazaki and their acquaintance Fumiaki Suzuki were arrested for unfairly acquiring stock in Aiming. Square Enix works with Aiming on mobile games, including Dragon Quest Tact and Gestalt Odin. Sazaki and Suzuki were arrested under suspicions of purchasing around 47 million yen of stock in Aiming before it was officially revealed that they would be working with Square Enix on Dragon Quest Tact.
More: Square Enix, top, Yuji Naka
Yuji Naka officially confirms that he’s left Square Enix, not ruling out retirement
Posted on 2 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 0 comments
News started to make the rounds yesterday that Sonic the Hedgehog creator Yuji Naka had possibly left Square Enix. His first and only project with the company was Balan Wonderworld, which hit Switch earlier this year.
Naka has since addressed the situation with a message on Twitter. Aside from officially confirming that he left Square Enix at the end of April, Naka also noted that he’s considering retirement.
Here’s Naka’s full statement, courtesy of Siliconera:
More: Square Enix, top, Yuji Naka
Sonic creator and Balan Wonderworld director Yuji Naka seemingly gone from Square Enix
Posted on 2 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Switch | 0 comments
After joining the company and creating just a single game there, Yuji Naka is apparently no longer with Square Enix. Naka, who directed the title and is often attributed as the creator of Sonic the Hedgehog, updated his LinkedIn and Facebook pages to show that he has moved on. It appears that Naka left Square Enix on April 30.
Naka told IGN last year that Balan Wonderworld was his “once change” to create a full-scale platformer.
Balan Wonderworld launched on Switch this past March. Unfortunately, the critical reception was negative.
More: Balan Wonderworld, Square Enix, top, Yuji Naka
Sonic designer Yuji Naka really wanted to work at Nintendo
Posted on 5 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 0 comments
Yuji Naka was instrumental for the creation of Sonic. He programmed the very first game, and continued to work on the series – as well as SEGA projects – for over two decades.
Naka would eventually leave SEGA in 2006 to form his own studio Prope. Earlier this year, he joined Square Enix.
Yuji Naka has joined Square Enix
Posted on 6 years ago by Matt(@OnePunchMaz) in General Gaming, News | 13 Comments
Yuji Naka, most famous for his heavy involvement with the Sonic series since its beginning, has announced on Twitter that he has joined Square Enix. He will be working in game development and says that he aims to develop “an enjoyable game”.
He was a key member of SEGA and Sonic Team for over 20 years, first as a programmer on Sonic games, then later on as a general producer. In 2006, he left SEGA to create his own studio, Prope.
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Yuji Naka, Takashi Iizuka, Miyamoto on Sonic jumping over to Nintendo platforms
Posted on 7 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, DS, General Nintendo, News, Wii, Wii U | 6 Comments
These days, it’s easy to associate Sonic with Nintendo. The character has appeared in Olympics games with Mario, and SEGA even partnered with the big N on some exclusive games. During the early ’90s, however, things were much different as Mario and Sonic were pretty big rivals.
Game Informer put up a new piece today about how Sonic eventually landed on Nintendo platforms following SEGA’s exit from the gaming hardware business. It contains some interesting quotes from the likes of creator Yuji Naka, Sonic developer Takashi Iizuka, and even Shigeru Miyamoto.
Read up on some noteworthy comments below. You can find Game Informer’s article here for more.
More: interview, Mario, Mario & Sonic, Shigeru Miyamoto, Sonic, Takashi Iizuka, top, Yuji Naka
Yuji Naka still wants to see Mario and Sonic co-star in an action game
Posted on 7 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 12 Comments
Mario and Sonic have starred alongside each other in various games based on the Olympics over the years. However, that’s not what Yuji Naka – one of Sonic’s creators who has since moved on from SEGA – originally envisioned.
We’ve heard about this a bit in the past, but Naka spoke about the origins of Mario & Sonic in greater length in an interview with Famitsu. When he gave a presentation in front of Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto during the GameCube era, it was for an action game featuring the two characters. Unfortunately, that didn’t lead anywhere, but SEGA obtaining the license for the Olympics eventually led to Mario and Sonic teaming up for a game. Yet to this day, Naka still wants to see the two characters in an action title.
Here’s what Naka had to say about Mario and Sonic co-starring in titles based on the Olympics and the origins of it all:
More: Famitsu, interview, Mario, Naoto Ohshima, SEGA, Sonic the Hedgehog, top, Yuji Naka
Video: Sonic creators share memories about working on the series
Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, Videos | 11 Comments
IGN spoke with Sonic creators Yakashi Iizuka and Yuji Naka about some of their memories when working on the series at SXSW a couple of weeks ago. See what they had to say in the video below.
More: SEGA, Sonic the Hedgehog, Yakashi Iizuka, Yuji Naka
Yuji Naka on initial Mario & Sonic conversations with Nintendo, Sonic in Smash Bros.
Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, DS, GameCube, General Nintendo, News, Wii | 2 Comments
During the 25th anniversary Sonic panel at SXSW earlier today, attendees were treated to a history lesson of sorts. The session looked back upon some of the franchise’s more notable installments as well as the Blue Blur’s appearance in other games – including the Mario & Sonic series.
Here’s what Yuji Naka, one of the creators of Sonic, had to say about those initial conversations with Nintendo:
“So yes it is true. Back in the day I did go to Kyoto to visit Nintendo and wanted to have a meeting with Mr. Miyamoto and figure out could we make a game maybe with Mario and Sonic together. Although those original conversations happened about three years before the Olympics game came out, we weren’t able to really make a game that featured Sonic and Mario back from that original conversation, but because we had those conversations, it kind of kicked off future conversations with Nintendo which afterwards led to the Olympic game coming out.”
After these comments, SEGA’s Aaron Webber asked if it’s because of Naka that we have Sonic in Smash. In response, Naka noted the following, as relayed by his translator:
“The original Sonic becoming a part of the Smash Bros. game was also part of that conversation. During the GameCube development for Smash Bros., he really wanted to get Sonic into that game, but it was just too late in the development process and couldn’t get it in for GameCube, but they did move forward and put Sonic in for the Wii version.”
