Hideki Sato, the designer behind virtually every Sega console, and the company’s former president, has died age 77.
Japanese games outlet Beep21 reports that Sato passed away this weekend.
Sato and his R&D team were responsible for the creation of Sega’s arcade and home console hardware, including the Master System, Genesis / Mega Drive, Saturn, and Dreamcast.
Update - Sega statement
Sega has published a statement following news of Sato’s passing.
“We are deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Hideki Sato, who served as President of SEGA from 2001 to 2003,” it said. “SEGA would like to offer its condolences to his family and friends.
“Starting his career with the development of arcade machines, Mr. Sato was instrumental in the development of iconic home consoles, including the SG-1000, SC-3000, Mega Drive/Sega Genesis, Sega Saturn, and Dreamcast.
“His leadership helped lay the foundation of SEGA, and his contributions had a significant and lasting impact on the entire gaming industry.
“We will always remember his contributions to our company, and all of us at SEGA extend our deepest condolences as we honor his memory.”
The engineer joined Sega in 1971 and was the company’s acting president between 2001 and 2003. He left the company in 2008.
“From the beginning, Sega’s home console development has always been influenced by our arcade development,” Sato previously told Famitsu in an interview covering Sega’s history.
“Our first 8-bit machine was the SC-3000. This was a PC for beginner-level users. At that time, Sega only did arcade games, so this was our first challenge. We had no idea how many units we’d sell.”
Sato said of Mega Drive, Sega’s most successful console: “At that point, we decided to start developing a new home console. By then, arcade games were using 16-bit CPUs.
“Arcade development was something we were very invested in, so we were always using the most cutting-edge technology there. Naturally, it started us thinking: what if we used that technology in a home console?
“Two years after we started development, it was done: a 16-bit CPU home console, the Megadrive. The 68000 chip had also recently come down in price, so the timing was right.”
On Dreamcast, the release that ultimately ended Sega’s run in hardware, Sato said the keyword for the development was “play and communication.”
“The ultimate form of communication is a direct connection with another, and we included the modem and the linkable VMUs for that purpose,” he said.
“We had also planned to have some sort of linking function with cell phones, but we weren’t able to realize it. Consumers were now used to the raging ‘bit wars’, so even though we knew it was a lot of nonsense, we needed to appeal to them in those terms with the Dreamcast.
“And so we marketed it as having a ‘128 bit graphics engine RISC CPU’, even the SH-4 was only 64-bit. (laughs) On the other hand, we extensively customized the original SH-4 for the Dreamcast, to the point where I think you could almost call it something new.”