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Sonic co-creator Hirokazu Yasuhara joins Nintendo

C

castlegar

Member
squareyaspic.jpg


Hirokazu Yasuhara, a long-time industry veteran and game director for the early Sonic the Hedgehog titles, has assumed a new role at Nintendo, Gamasutra has learned.

Both Nintendo and Yasuhara himself have confirmed the move, and while neither party revealed his new role, Yasuhara said he will be working at Nintendo of America in Redmond, Washington.

According to Yasuhara’s LinkedIn profile, he left Namco Bandai just last month, and is now a full-fledged Nintendo employee at "Nintendo NST," or Nintendo Software Technology, a North American Nintendo subsidiary.

While Nintendo has yet to reveal what Yasuhara will be working on, the Nintendo Software Technology division is known for working on all sorts of Nintendo IPs and platforms. Some of the company’s most recent releases include Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Mini-Land Mayhem for DS and several Nintendo-published DSiWare titles.
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Story here

Nintendo does what Segacantaffordtoanymore
 
E

ElFly

Member
This reminds me. Why the fuck we never got a Mario and Sonic platforming game and only ever got Olympic titles and Sonic in Brawl.

WTF went wrong there.
 
S

Seik

Banned
tFifD.png


More potential for Nintendo. Can't wait to see all the awesomeness they will unleash with the Wii U.
 
T

ThatObviousUser

ὁ αἴσχιστος παῖς εἶ
Yasuhara said he will be working at Nintendo of America in Redmond, Washington.
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Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh huh. That's weird. Are NoA going to make some games now or what?
 
K

kami_sama

Member
ElFly said:
This reminds me. Why the fuck we never got a Mario and Sonic platforming game and only ever got Olympic titles and Sonic in Brawl.

WTF went wrong there.
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Completely different types of gameplay. One focuses on tight jumps, while the other in velocity.
 
C

Cosmonaut X

Member
Andrex said:
Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh huh. That's weird. Are NoA going to make some games now or what?
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I get the impression that NST have been a bit of a basketcase for pretty much the whole of this gen - cancelled games, prototypes canned, staff leaving, support role on downloadable software etc. - so perhaps NCL are finally trying to do something about getting them back into shape?
 
B

Box of Bunnies

Banned
It was no coincidence that the start of the downturn of the Sonic franchise coincided with Yasuhara's departure from Sonic Team. Hopefully he can do good things for NST.
 
R

Ridley327

Member
Box of Bunnies said:
It was no coincidence that the start of the downturn of the Sonic franchise coincided with Yasuhara's departure from Sonic Team. Hopefully he can do good things for NST.
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Well, let's just hope that he'll at least get NST to stop making Mario vs. DK titles. Then we can worry about the other stuff!
 
T

TreIII

Member
Box of Bunnies said:
It was no coincidence that the start of the downturn of the Sonic franchise coincided with Yasuhara's departure from Sonic Team. Hopefully he can do good things for NST.
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I'd go even earlier. The moment Naka's "prima donna" ways allowed him to rise up to being leader, is when I'd personally say things were starting to go sour. Sonic was as awesome as he was because it was a team effort that bought him to life.
 
S

Shion

Member
What the hell is he going to do at NST?
Give him a studio at EAD, let him create whatever he wants and then we talk.
 
S

Starwolf_UK

Member
Time for Wikipasta (hope its not been recently vandalised well given the NST info hasn't bene edited in...):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hirokazu_Yasuhara said:
Hirokazu Yasuhara (also credited as Carol Yas) (born October 12, 1965) is a Japanese video game designer and Sonic Team's 2nd Assistant President. He designed the gameplay and stages of the majority of the initial Sonic the Hedgehog video games for Sega Mega Drive based on technical demos and engines coded by Yuji Naka and characters designed by Naoto Ōshima. In spite of Yasuhara and Oshima's key creative roles, programmer Naka has since become identified as the creator of Sonic the Hedgehog by the mainstream gaming press. Yasuhara stayed with the franchise until 1994 though he worked on Sonic 3D Blast in 1995, Sonic Xtreme in 1996 and Sonic R in 1997 and with Sonic Team until 2002. He then joined Naughty Dog, working on the Jak and Daxter series and 'Uncharted', collaborating once more with former Sega employee Mark Cerny. He is now the senior design director at Namco Bandai Games America. It has been announced that he is working on a 30th anniversary Pac-Man game.
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*Pac-Man death sound*

I don't get it, didn't work with Sonic after 1994 *list of Sonic games he worked on after 1994*

But gameplay and stage design for early Sonic. Good stuff.
 
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