Who is the father of “Sonic the Hedgehog” (Sonic/Sonic Boy)? This controversy has actually been lingering in the gaming circle for many years. Mike Fischer, now the vice president of entertainment marketing at Sega of America, once again opened fire on former Sonic Team leader Yuji Naka, even describing him as “the most miserable and worst person” he has ever encountered in his career.
In a recent interview with Sega-16, Fischer not only questioned Yuji Naka’s long-term efforts to snatch the creation credit of “Sonic the Hedgehog”, but also accused him of continuing to try to rewrite history for many years, so that Naoto Oshima, who was actually responsible for the character design, was ignored.
Former Sega executive: I saw with my own eyes Yuji Naka taking credit
Fischer said that he happened to be working at Sega at the time, so he completely witnessed the birth of “Sonic the Hedgehog”.
He recalled that at that time, Sega issued an internal notice to all employees, hoping to create a new mascot that could compete with Nintendo’s “Super Mario Bros.” (Super Mario Bros.), so all employees were encouraged to submit character design proposals.
Fischer emphasized that he personally watched the selection process take place and also watched the final winning plan emerge.
However, he believes that Yuji Naka later gradually concentrated the creative credit on “Sonic the Hedgehog” to himself.
“I was at the scene, and I saw with my own eyes that Yuji Naka took the credit.”
Why is Sonic blue? Fischer: That was not decided by Yuji Naka at all.
Fischer specifically mentioned Oshima in the interview. He said that he once saw Yuji Naka on stage to receive the Lifetime Achievement Award, and the reason was even “the person who created Sonic.” What makes him even more dissatisfied is that he once saw Yuji Naka talking about why he decided to design Sonic blue in an interview with the media.
Fischer believes that these matters actually have nothing to do with Yuji Naka.
He pointed out that important creative decisions such as character design, appearance direction and blue image are all responsible for Naoto Oshima. In his eyes, Naoto Oshima is a very kind and respectable person, so he has been hoping to fight for his due historical position for many years.
He even said that one of the main reasons why he was willing to be interviewed by the author of “Console Wars” was to officially record this period of history.
He once refused to sit in the same row as Naoto Oshima.
Fischer also shared an impressive past experience.
He said that when Naoto Oshima participated in the development of “Blinx: The Time Sweeper” and attended the Xbox One launch event, Yuji Naka was also invited.
However, according to Fischer, Naka refused to sit in the same row as Oshima at the time. The reason is that Naka Yuji believes that Oshima Naoto is trying to steal his credit. This incident also confirmed Fischer’s belief that there was a deep and long-standing conflict between the two parties.
“The worst person I’ve ever met in my life”
Fischer’s criticism became more direct later in the interview.
Since he has worked at Sega, Namco, Square, Microsoft and Epic Games in his career, and has come into contact with countless well-known developers and senior executives in the industry, this speech received special attention.
He said that he worked at Sega twice, from 1990 to 1997 and from 2001 to 2003, so he had ample time to work with Yuji Naka. Fischer had few reservations when it came to his overall impression of Naka.
He said: “He is the most painful person I have ever worked with in the gaming industry, or even in any job. He is really a terrible person. You can quote this sentence directly.” He also mentioned that Yuji Naka was later convicted of insider trading and became one of the most controversial figures in the Japanese gaming industry in recent years.
There are also a few commendable stories
But even so, Fischer shared an incident from the past that he believes deserves recognition.
According to him, Naka Yuji discovered that there was a piracy team in China that specialized in illegally porting Dreamcast games to the PlayStation platform for sale. When companies encounter this kind of situation, most companies will deal with it through legal means.
But Yuji Naka took a different approach.
Fischer said that Yuji Naka eventually bought the company outright and hired the original team to handle subsequent transplants. While this story doesn’t change Fischer’s overall opinion of Naka, it’s one of the few times throughout the interview that he was willing to publicly praise him.
So far, Yuji Naka has not publicly responded to the content of this interview. As for how the creative credit for “Sonic the Hedgehog” should be distributed, as participants continue to speak out, it seems that this decades-long debate will not end so soon.