Katano Attempts to Settle Concerns
On January 5th, our original story uncovering the many candid and controversial details of matters inside Sega by former SoE staffer Ben Andac caused global uproar and concern surrounding the state of Sonic and of Sonic Team. It was read many times over by hundreds of thousands throughout the gaming community in various forms.
Now, more than four months later, the Sonic Team’s Tetsu Katano–aware of our story and its ramifications–makes his first public comments on the story. The bottom line, in his view–that was then. This is now.
Speaking to an inquisitive Adam Doree of Kikizo Games, Katano, who has been involved with nearly all major Sonic titles of the past decade, attempted to play down Andac’s comments by noting that, in its current state, there’s plenty to be excited about with Sonic Team.
Without completely denying what Andac wrote three years ago, Katano told Doree:
Obviously, I’m aware that some people lose their inspiration and motivation in making games. But each person has his or her own view about their work. For me personally, I simply enjoy making games, and that’s what I wanted to do when I joined Sega and Sonic Team. As a professional game creator, you have to always be thinking about new ideas and concepts for games, and we have a lot of new people with fresh ideas and attitudes coming in every year. So as a team, we have good vibrations, good momentum.
Katano’s comments show that the team is taking in new talent on a regular basis. While that’s a good thing in the sense of keeping Sonic Team fresh, it’s also PR speak in some circles that indicates other talent has been let go, perhaps often. Though that doesn’t quite give the Sonic Team environment the “sweatshop” label Andac proposed, such moves yield a “rotating door” label, and that may not be good for overall quality.
Now that you’ve heard both sides of the story, we want to know which side you believe more–the past musings of Ben Andac, or the current take from Tetsu Katano. We have a poll asking that very question, and you can also tell us in the comments area below.
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Ben Andac is a hooligan!
Sonic Team has done many mistakes in the past, does them in the present, and will do them in the future, but that is the human part of them. They still develop some of the best and most unique games available, and I’ll always continue to love them and to support them.
About time Sonic Team figured out what Ben said was lies
The rotating door thing sounds more accurate. Each game has a distinct feel to it, the people making these games simply can’t be the same. I do hope the Unleashed team stays for another round, they did a good job, and if they stay I’m sure they’ll only do better the next time around.
I’m on Tetsu Katano side.
A List of Sonic Team Creative Directors
Hirokazu Yasuhara:
1. Sonic the Hedgehog 16-Bit
2. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 16-Bit
3. Sonic the Hedgehog 3
4. Sonic & Knuckles
Naoto Ohshima:
1. Sonic the Hedgehog CD
2. NiGHTS into Dreams
3. Christmas NiGHTS
4. Burning Rangers
Takeshi Niimura:
1. Ristar the Shooting Star
Takao Miyoshi:
1. Sonic 3D Blast
2. Phantasy Star Online
3. Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II
4. Phantasy Star Online Episode III C.A.R.D. Revolution
5. Phantasy Star Online Blue Burst
6. Phantasy Star Universe
7. Phantasy Star Universe Ambition of the Illuminus
8. Phantasy Star Portable
9. Phantasy Star 0
10. Pole’s Big Adventure
Takashi Iizuka:
1. Sonic Jam
2. Sonic R
3. Sonic Adventure
4. Sonic Adventure 2
5. Sonic Heroes
6. Shadow the Hedgehog
7. Sonic Rivals
8. Sonic Rivals 2
9. NiGHTS Journey of Dreams
Yuji Naka:
1. ChuChu Rocket
Shun Nakamura:
1. Samba de Amigo
2. Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg
3. Sonic the Hedgehog 15th Anniversary
Akinori Nishiyama:
1. Sonic Advance
2. Sonic Advance 2
3. Sonic Pinball Party
4. Sonic Advance 3
5. Sonic Rush
Takashi Yuda:
1. Puyo Pop Fever
2. Puyo Pop Fever 2
3. Puyo Pop 15th Anniversary
4. Puyo Pop 7
Tomoyuki Hayashi:
1. Sonic Battle
Hideki Anbo:
1. Astro Boy
Takumi Yoshinaga:
1. Feel the Magic XY/XX
2. The Rub Rabbits
3. Atama Scan
4. Kokoro Scan
Yoshihisa Hashimoto:
1. SEGA SuperStars
2. Sonic Unleashed Full
Kenjiro Morimoto:
1. Sonic Riders
2. Sonic Riders II Zero Gravity
Yojiro Ogawa:
1. Sonic and the Secret Rings
Sakae Osumi:
1. Sonic Rush Adventure
Toshiyuki Nagahara:
1. Sonic Unleashed Lite
Tetsu Katano:
1. Sonic and the Black Knight
When I first read Ben’s story it sounded as if he was venting more than anything. This seems more like a mother making an excuse for he childs bad behaviour. I want to believe that Sonic Team is full of inspiration and motivation, and that there’s plenty to be excited about, SU proved that I should be so. But only the next game will tell I guess. But I think I’ll keep the optimism, and now you may all glimpse a bit of fangirlism: Sonic Team rocks all the way and always will. lol
Hirokazu Yasuhara all the way, :3
Thoguh, Takashi Iizuka was good 3D game director, the reason his last two games weren’t so great was because he was getting Hedgehog Flu from making so much win games.
“such moves yield a “rotating door” label, and that may not be good for overall quality.”
So long as they have fresh ideas and a decent amount of experience, I actually wouldn’t mind having Sonic Team have a “Saturday Night Live” style roster of employees. That way, we got idealistic, experienced people continuously steaming in…the not so good people get sacked sooner, and there’s a good chance for people who did well but left to come back and have a greater role. Hashimoto was bumped up from Chao programming to one of the main roles in making Sonic Unleashed, and he did a good enough job for his first time, so maybe that IS the kind of thing that’s good for overall quality!
wow! interesting update
so sonicteam isn`t infact, sick of sonic after all!?! well i beleave tetsu if thats his name or knowen as SatBK guy! 
he could`ve had meantiond something on the werehog thing he said! 
also my 360 died
@blueblur mwahahahahahahahahahahahah fell the pain do you FEEL IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! xD ;D
I never believed this “Andac” anyway. I could say they had the concept of Shadow during the development of Sonic 3 and people would believe me.
new sonic games are truabule because when pepole in nintendo took sonic idea thats why new sonic games are truabule sega has to be care full with thier games.
Andac is kickass for saying Sonic Team doesn`t care about Sonic but even though he had some bad games I`m still going to like his games because their fun & some of them helped me become an artist for 7 good years
Eh, apparently turn-around time on game development is short, no matter where you work. You’re always coming or going, it seems.
As much as I’d like to say I trust Tetsu Kano after the effort put in to Sonic Unleashed, this is very much him dodging a bullet. Whenever anybody in the game industry is asked if there’s any trouble at their company, the answer is always going to be “There’s nothing wrong! Everything is fine.” – even if the building behind them is on fire and burning to the ground. When you do PR work, that’s just how it goes. You smile and tell everybody there’s nothing to worry about, even if there is.
The amount of people who are in denial about what Ben Andac said, though, is constantly amazing to me. The guy checked out and his job at Sega was basically evaluating the quality of software and the developers of that software. It doesn’t get any more real than that, folks.
Ryan Bloom: but thats just it. You dont know if he was just saying that or really ment it
Hmm. Evaluating the developers and the quality of software. You know, in the wake of the critical failure of Sonic ’06, I suppose I could understand just a little of where Andac is coming from, especially since that was around the time he wrote it. This man was explicitly, like many who have enjoyed the best of Sonic games, tired of the poor products that had been coming from SEGA and Sonic Team as a whole, regardless of which division made what game. Bitterly so. Moreso than I care to be, especially since I like Unleashed, even though I’ve only played the ‘gimped’ WiiS2 version. But who knows, maybe the PS360 is ‘gimped’ in others ways I’m not aware of, but I’ll be the judge of that when the time comes. All I know is I’ve just beaten Sonic’s story in Sonic Adventure, and it was … so awesome, very enjoyable. Quite simply, a lot of fun. I don’t see why I need to let other people take away that potential enjoyment from future games or otherwise games I’ve yet to play.
What I want to say is that I don’t want to put SEGA, Sonic Team, and their recent and future games, collectively, into the reject forever box, because that is the impression I am getting from the most stalwart of naysayers in this whole tiresome and aggressively divisive debate. But I also refuse to ignore people’s opinions and the testimonies of people within the company in question, including Mr. Katano and Mr. Andac. Yes, even if it is PR, I do believe that there is truth, general or specific, in what Mr. Katano said. Hence, I’m not satisfied in taking what Andac said and letting that destroy my enjoyment of games starring a character I really enjoy playing: Sonic the Hedgehog. I won’t deny facts, but I’ll also take these sort of things with a grain of salt and put them to bed. Not everything is always as it seems, so it’s best to calm both the fan and the anti-fan sentiments down to a simmer and simply treat this whole issue as it deserves to be treated: Wait and See. Nothing more, nothing less.
Psyche.
Reading back my whole schpiel, I realize now that I could have condensed it into a single sentence: I don’t care what people think. I’ll still get my hands on Sonic games and play them out of spite of everyone else who doesn’t like it. At least until I get tired.
Okay, so that was two sentences. Anyways, hindsight’s 20-20.
3 sentences. For god’s sake, I hate math so much I’m unlearning it by sheer rage as I type! o.o
Treleus … You & I have one thing in common : We play the new sonic games first thing we get our hands on it
@Keydown: Sega hired the guy for his opinions. And he made his opinion about Sonic Team pretty clear. Trying to find a way to say “Oh, he didn’t really mean it” is denial on your part. You’re the one who doesn’t want to face the fact that maybe things don’t smell like roses right now with the Sonic franchise, and in my personal opinion, that’s what leads to terrible, awful games like Sonic 2006. Do you really want more terrible, awful Sonic games? I don’t.
Eeee… What is this about? I don’t get it…
I like Yoshihisa!
3 days and no new updates?
Aw, man D: I had a good feeling about today.
Ryan Bloom Of course I dont want awful games. I am just saying.
As much as I don’t approve of Ben Andac’s attitude toward the state of Sega (basing this from his distaste of a “slow werewolf with stretchy arms” concept and outright stating that the company simply doesn’t care anymore (which by today’s evidence of Unleashed gameplay-wise and Black Knight content-wise to the fans, isn’t true)), I’m just simply amazed that it took them four months to respond to that.
Also, correct me if I’m wrong, but this was the case between – possibly earlier than – Sonic 06 and Secret Rings. While the evidence basing around 06 may back up Andac’s story, Rings was overall not bad, but was still rushed. But I heard (I “HEARD”, don’t quote me on this), that Sega put about twice as many people on Secret Rings just to make it to release date.
That’s alot of work put into a game of a franchise that a company “doesn’t care about anymore”, don’tcha think?
It all comes down to opinion. Ben Andac may have been disillusioned with the franchise, as many of us are. Simply put, he disagrees with what Sonic Team is doing, so to him, he thinks they must not like their jobs. That’s his opinion, and I’m not saying it’s wrong. On the other hand, I personally agree with Katano, since he’s actually a part of Sonic Team, rather than a mere spectator drawing conclusions.
Here’s one interesting quote from the article that caught my attention:
Katano-san also added:
“I would love to try something different other than making Sonic games myself, it’s just a matter of identifying the right person with the motivation and desire to make Sonic games. If that happens, maybe I could sort of retire from Sonic games and do something different.”
Allegations of quality aside, they really should let the old at Sonic Team veterans stretch their legs some more. Though that statement sounds benign, it really is sort of a passive-aggressive euphanization of “I’m fucking sick of making more Sonic games.”
From what I can tell, agreeing or disagreeing with Andac or Katano relates alot to people’s thoughts on the games.
Those that were not fans of Sonic and the Secret Rings, Black Knight, or Unleashed seem to take his side, while those that enjoyed those games see him as a hooligan.
Sonic 06 was rushed, in which Sega was confirmed. In the same interview concerning Sonic and the Secret Rings, while the “team doubling” was mentioned, interviews go along with the “game being rushed” and “short development time.” As for Nights… the things Andac are saying really seem to be true, other than rantings about (those games are awful) rants, Sega does seem to spend too little time developing Sonic games. Sonic Unleashed… however got like 2 years of development, so that’s an improvement I guess.