Sega Japan's currently most senior employee - Masami Ishikawa

[Trippled]

http://www.polygon.com/features/2015/2/3/7952705/sega-genesis-masami-ishikawa


http://www.siliconera.com/2013/09/18/segas-original-hardware-developer-talks-about-the-companys-past-consoles/


After designing the SG-1000, Master System and Mega Drive  together with Hideki Sato, he became the forefront man for Sega's arcade manufacturing...


I would have never guessed that Sega Japan still has important employee like him around, given how - as far as I know - the most senior employees at Sega currently are Hideki Okumua (1987, now COO), Nagoshi (1989, now CCO) and also Akinori Nishiyama (1987, senior producer). Many important Sega figures (if not most) that joined Sega during the 80's have left Sega.


Its hard to say what influence he had - when he was involved at the arcade sector. But recently reported japanese Sega news around the web - which is the sand sculping arcade machine and the new Sega arcade board "Nu", are things in which he had influence in.


Unlike Hideki Sato, the most known Sega hardware engineer, he has mostly worked in the background and never took major management or executive roles.
Kinda like Rieko Kodama, he is a Sega Japan employee who is quite in the background.


I remember Stephen Frost, that there was Sega of America employee who was around since the 16-bit days...which is hard to belive really.


Makes me wonder what senior employees are working at Sega , who we know nothing about...

[George]

Good find. Yeah and no one at SEGA mentioned him by name (the guy that was there since the Genesis era) making me believe most of them probably don't want attention.

[Trippled]

I think the longest time someone someone spent at Sega was a Suzuki, that was not Yu Suzuki.

It was Hisashi Suzuki, 1962-2004, that's over 40 years.


He was the top arcade man at Sega, I think Hiroshi Kataoka (now in charge for Sega's arcade stuff, Senior Creative Officer) knows him well, since they both shared presidency at AM2. Yu Suzuki never wanted to manage a big department.

[George]

Yeah that is what I hear about Yu Suzuki, not into managing big projects, I assume he wanted to come up with ideas and do dirty work. You gotta give Hisashi Suzuki a ton of credit along with anyone managing what project AM2 worked on. During the 80's and 90's they where putting out solid game after solid game with no rests. Like 2 hit games a year at points that defined the industry.