Gamasutra Interviews Yuji Naka

By
Tristan Oliver
– December 29, 2008

Reconfirms Sonic-esque title in Development

There is a lot of debate in the Sonic community over who truly deserves to be the “father” of Sonic the Hedgehog.  It certainly can’t be denied, however, that Yuji Naka, considered for the longest time to be the creator, played at least a very significant role.

Mr. Naka already confirmed at the Tokyo Game Show that his development studio, Prope, had a Sonic like title in the works.  That confirmation came from Gamasutra, which promised a more in-depth interview later on.

That interview has now been made available.

The interview begins with talk on Prope’s first projects, Let’s Tap and Let’s Catch.  But Mr. Naka also speaks of starting the development house in the first place, and how the game industry heirarchy works:

The game industry has a very short history behind it, and as a result, the more games you make, the further you work your way up the company ladder, until you become one of the heads of the whole outfit. Once that happens, you start running out of time to actually make games.

It’s better to keep yourself directly involved with the actual game process, you know? Directors are pretty high up the job ladder in the movie industry, but they’re still involved with every aspect of the film they’re working on; they’re still making movies their entire careers.

The game industry isn’t quite like that, and I think that’s a lost opportunity for a lot of people.

Before I left Sega, I was high enough up that I was looking at every game the company was developing.

Once I was in that position, though, I found that I wanted to get into the nitty-gritty details instead with the games, including Sonic — the whole “it’d be better if this bit were like this instead of that” type of thing. There was a lot I wanted to do that I couldn’t gauge until someone actually tried making it.

So, at the age of 40, I convinced Sega to let me build a company — since it’s Sega that’s behind the company, they’re the one publishing the games.

Really, if you’re a game creator, no matter how high a position you have in the industry, you need to keep creating.

It’s better for the industry, and it’s more fun for everybody involved.

The interview also is more specific about the Sonic style title in development, but not much more specific.  The only new information stemming from the Q&A is that the new game will be character based, and probably will be an original IP.  Naka also says that he would be willing to make the Let’s series go deeper if this initial game sells well.  Right now, it isn’t.

We’ll continue to keep tabs on what Yuji Naka and Prope have in store.

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