Yuji Naka

Yuji Naka
Born	September 17, 1965 (1965-09-17) (age 46) Osaka, Osaka Prefecture, Japan
Occupation	Game designer

Yuji Naka (中 裕司, Naka Yūji^?, born September 17, 1965 in Osaka, Osaka Prefecture), is a video game designer and programmer, best known as the former head of Sonic Team, a group of Sega programmers/designers, where he was the lead programmer of the original Sonic the Hedgehog.

In early games he was often credited as "YU2" (in reference to Yu Suzuki) and "Muuu Yuji".

Naka is one of the few high-profile Japanese game creators to speak fluent English.

Since 2006 he has been the head of Prope, an independent game company he founded after leaving Sega that same year.

Sonic is surrounded by series creators Yuji Naka (left), Naoto Ōshima (center), and Hirokazu Yasuhara (Right) at Sonic's 20th Anniversary party

Early gamecrafting career

Naka learned how to program by replicating and debugging video game code printed in magazines. The experience prompted him to study assemblers and practice writing code during his school classes.^[1] After graduating high school, Naka decided to skip university and stay in his home town. During this time period Naka worked long hours at various menial jobs.

Career

Around 1983, Naka saw that Sega was looking for programming assistants and decided to apply. After a brief interview, he was hired and his first project was a game called Girl's Garden, which he and a colleague created together as part of their training process. Their boss was impressed and decided to publish the game, and it earned them notice among their peers and Japanese gamers.^[1] Naka's abilities as a programmer were further demonstrated in 1987 for his work on Phantasy Star for the Sega Master System, where he was responsible for the impressive pseudo-3D animation effects present in the game's first-person dungeons.

His true breakthrough, however, came in 1991 when he programmed the original Sonic the Hedgehog game for the Sega Genesis, with Naoto Ōshima designing the character and Hirokazu Yasuhara creating the stages. Following Sonic The Hedgehog's release, Naka moved to Sega's U.S. branch, Sega Technical Institute, where he worked with famed American designer Mark Cerny on the follow-up in conjunction with the original team back in Japan, now known as "Sonic Team". This partnership between the Eastern and Western teams continued through the development of Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and Sonic & Knuckles, though the bulk of the development duties shifted back to Sonic Team in Japan for those titles, which Naka had also returned to by that time.

After the release of Sonic & Knuckles, Naka was moved up to the role of producer at Sega of Japan. During his tenure in that position, he oversaw titles including Nights into Dreams... and Burning Rangers for Sega Saturn; Sonic Adventure and Phantasy Star Online for Dreamcast; Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg for Nintendo GameCube; and the "EyeToy" game Sega Superstars for PlayStation 2.

In news released on March 16, 2006, Naka announced that he intended to create his own game studio, Prope, and that he would be leaving Sega to do so.^[2] Following Naoto Oshima's departure in 1999 and Hirokazu Yasuhara's departure in 2002, Yuja Naka was the final member of the original creative core that created Sonic the Hedgehog to leave Sega.

Cameos

Yuji Naka has a cameo in the Sega arcade soccer game Virtua Striker 3 along with Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Eggman, and a group of Chao. He is also mentioned in Shadow the Hedgehog where GUN soldiers will occasionally call out "Mister Yuji Naka is all right". He is also one of the survivors that can be rescued from a burning building in the game Burning Rangers.

Yuji Naka's birthday was used as the level select code in Sonic 2, which requires players to enter Sound Select and play sounds 19, 65, 9 and 17.

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Szczepaniak, John. "Before They Were Famouos". Retro Gamer (Imagine Publishing) (35): 74. 
2. ^ Edge Staff (2006-05-08). "Confirmed: Yuji Naka Leaves Sega". Edge. http://www.next-gen.biz/news/confirmed-yuji-naka-leaves-sega. Retrieved 2010-02-18. 

External links

• Official Prope website (Japanese)
• Sonic Team Speaks (archived by the WaybackMachine)
• Sega-16^{[dead link]} History of Yuji Naka
• Yuji Naka's profile at MobyGames

Persondata
Name	Naka, Yuji
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	September 17, 1965
Place of birth	Osaka, Osaka Prefecture, Japan
Date of death
Place of death