RIP

Akira Nagai, Former Managing Director at SEGA, Has Passed Away

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We’re sad to report that Akira Nagai, Managing Director at SEGA from 1965 to 2004, has passed away. Nagai was one of the longest serving managing directors and representatives at the company, initially starting out in jukebox distribution in 1963 at Nihon Goraku Bussan and continuing in amusement machine sales in the 1980s. During the 1990s, Nagai managed SEGA’s Amusement Theme Park concept which went on to establish several Joypolis venues in Japan in addition to others. Fans might best remember his likeness from a cameo as a Yakuza boss in the first Shenmue game.

Akira Nagai passed on November 15, 2022 at age 79. If you would like a deep dive on his career, please read his full article on SEGA Retro.

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SEGA Studios Australia Shuts Down

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Things have not been too hot in the video game industry lately. Over the course of the last three months we’ve seen THQ close its doors, LucasArts shuttered by Disney, and Hell Yeah! developer Arkedo cease video game development. Today unfortunately brings another name to the list: SEGA Studios Australia. SEGA has announced that the studio will be shutting down later this year.

Formerly known as Creative Assembly Australia, they were responsible for the critically acclaimed Medieval II: Total War. Besides their Total War video game they created Stormrise and London 2012. 

We at SEGAbits wish the developers all the best in their future endeavors.

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SEGA Saturn game designer Kenji Eno died yesterday

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Kenji Eno was always very anti-Sony and pro-SEGA back in the day. So much so that his franchises turned out to be exclusive and the man would go on a media rampage to put down Sony when he could. He is known for his horror SEGA Saturn titles like Enemy Zero and D (which later got a sequel on Dreamcast).

“I felt betrayed when Sony was treating me like that, so when I heard that the Sega vice president was a very interesting guy, he and I met and created this whole plot. My original conditions to make the game exclusive for Saturn involved my earlier story about supplying 1,000 Saturns for the blind people, and also to have Sega’s president appear onstage, personally, for the event. That was the original plot, and that was what was going to happen until the last minute, but he had a board meeting at Sega, and they were like, “OK, you’re actually appearing?” Like, Sega is a big, successful company, and a high-up management-level guy in that kind of company appearing in a situation like that isn’t good, so everybody stopped him. So he appeared in a video rather than in person.” – Kenji Eno tells 1up in a exclusive interview back in 2008.

Cause of death is said to be heart failure brought on by hypertension. Its funny how ahead of his time he was, one of his conditions to make his games exclusive to Saturn was for SEGA to give a 1,000 Saturn’s to blind people. He even created a game for them called ‘Real Sounds: Kaze No Regret‘ for the Saturn that was later re-released on Dreamcast.

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