Yu Suzuki

Yu Suzuki
鈴木 裕
Suzuki at the 2011 Game Developers Conference
Born (1958-06-10) June 10, 1958 (age 66)
Kamaishi, Iwate, Japan
Alma materOkayama University of Science
Occupation(s)Game producer, designer, director, programmer, software engineer
Years active1983–present
Employer(s)Sega (1983–2008)
Ys Net (2008–present)
AwardsAIAS Hall of Fame Award (2003)[1]

Yu Suzuki (鈴木 裕, Suzuki Yū, born June 10, 1958) is a Japanese game designer, producer, programmer, and engineer, who headed Sega's AM2 team for 18 years. Considered one of the first auteurs of video games, he has been responsible for a number of Sega's arcade hits, including three-dimensional sprite-scaling games that used "taikan" motion simulator arcade cabinets, such as Hang-On, Space Harrier, Out Run and After Burner, and pioneering polygonal 3D games such as Virtua Racing and Virtua Fighter,[2] which are some of the games besides others from rival companies during that era credited with popularizing 3D graphics in video games;[3][4][5][6][7] as well as the critically acclaimed Shenmue series.[8][9] As a hardware engineer, he led the development of various arcade system boards, including the Sega Space Harrier, Model 1, Model 2[2] and Model 3,[10] and was involved in the technical development of the Dreamcast console and its corresponding NAOMI arcade hardware.[11]

In 2003, Suzuki became the sixth person to be inducted into the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences' Hall of Fame. IGN listed him at #9 in their Top 100 Game Creators of All Time list.[12] In 2011, he received the Pioneer Award at the Game Developers Choice Awards.[13][14]

  1. ^ "D.I.C.E Special Awards". Retrieved 22 January 2017.
  2. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference 1UP was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
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  4. ^ "The Art of Virtua Fighter". Next Generation (11). Imagine Media: 1. November 1995. Then in 1992, he changed gaming forever with Virtua Racing. Overnight, 'polygons' became the buzz-word of the industry ... But Suzuki and AM2 will be best remembered for the creation of the Virtua Fighter series in 1993.
  5. ^ Feit, Daniel (September 5, 2012). "How Virtua Fighter Saved PlayStation's Bacon". Wired. Retrieved October 9, 2014. Ryoji Akagawa: If it wasn't for Virtua Fighter, the PlayStation probably would have had a completely different hardware concept. cf. Thomason, Steve (July 2006). "The Man Behind the Legend". Nintendo Power. Vol. 19, no. 205. p. 72. Toby Gard: It became clear to me watching people play Virtua Fighter, which was kind of the first big 3D-character console game, that even though there were only two female characters in the lineup, in almost every game I saw being played, someone was picking one of the two females.
  6. ^ Leone, Matt (2010). "The Essential 50 Part 35: Virtua Fighter". 1UP.com. Archived from the original on July 19, 2012. Retrieved December 10, 2016.
  7. ^ Donovan, Tristan (2010). Replay: The History of Video Games. Yellow Ant. p. 267. ISBN 978-0956507204. One of the key objections to 3D graphics that developers had been raising with Sony was that while polygons worked fine for inanimate objects such as racing cars, 2D images were superior when it came to animating people or other characters. Virtua Fighter, Suzuki's follow-up to Virtua Racing, was a direct riposte to such thinking ... The characters may have resembled artists' mannequins but their lifelike movement turned Suzuki's game into a huge success that exploded claims that game characters couldn't be done successfully in 3D ... Teruhisa Tokunaka, chief executive officer of Sony Computer Entertainment, even went so far as to thank Sega for creating Virtua Fighter and transforming developers' attitudes.
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