Yu Suzuki

Template:Short description Template:Infobox person Template:Nihongo is a Japanese game designer, producer, programmer, and engineer, who headed Sega's AM2 team for 18 years. Considered one of the first auteurs of video games, he has been responsible for a number of Sega's arcade hits, including three-dimensional sprite-scaling games that used "taikan" motion simulator arcade cabinets, such as Hang-On, Space Harrier, Out Run and After Burner, and pioneering polygonal 3D games such as Virtua Racing and Virtua Fighter,<ref name=1UP/> which are some of the games besides others from rival companies during that era credited with popularizing 3D graphics in video games;<ref name=gamespot/><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite magazine cf. Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref name="1UP VF">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> as well as the critically acclaimed Shenmue series.<ref name=GR_Shenmue/><ref name=MC_Shenmue/> As a hardware engineer, he led the development of various arcade system boards, including the Sega Space Harrier, Model 1, Model 2<ref name=1UP/> and Model 3,<ref name=nextgen/> and was involved in the technical development of the Dreamcast console and its corresponding NAOMI arcade hardware.<ref name =RedditAMA/>

In 2003, Suzuki became the sixth person to be inducted into the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences' Hall of Fame. IGN listed him at #9 in their Top 100 Game Creators of All Time list.<ref name=gamesign/> In 2011, he received the Pioneer Award at the Game Developers Choice Awards.<ref name=GDCA/><ref name=GDCV/>

Career

While studying at university, Yu Suzuki had written an undergraduate thesis on the subject of 3D computer graphics in video games.<ref name="nintendolife">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Historia">Template:Cite book (Part 1 and Part 2)</ref>

Sega AM2

Suzuki joined Sega in 1983 as a programmer. In his first year, he created a 2D boxing game called Champion Boxing for Sega's first home game console, the SG-1000. According to Suzuki, the executive staff at Sega found the game so impressive that they released it in arcades as-is by simply installing an SG-1000 into an arcade cabinet.<ref name="Retro163">Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref name=gccx/> He was promoted to project leader while still in his first year at the company.<ref name="Retro163"/> Then, Suzuki began working on another arcade game which would prove to be the big stepping-off point of his career. "To develop this game," Suzuki told G4TV, "I rode on motorcycles a lot. When we came up with the prototype (for the arcades), I would ride on that prototype bike for hours and hours every day."Template:Citation needed His efforts culminated into the game Hang-On, released in 1985. Hang-On was a success as it broke new ground in arcade technology. It did not feature any traditional controls, as the movement of the on-screen avatar was dictated by the movements the player made with their body on the motorcycle cabinet. This began the "Taikan" trend, the use of motion-controlled hydraulic simulator arcade cabinets in many arcade games of the late 1980s, two decades before motion controls became popular on video game consoles.<ref name =1UP/> The three-dimensional sprite/tile scaling was handled in a similar manner to textures in later texture-mapped polygonal 3D games of the 1990s.<ref name=pseudo/> Suzuki stated that his "designs were always 3D from the beginning. All the calculations in the system were 3D, even from Hang-On. I calculated the position, scale, and zoom rate in 3D and converted it backwards to 2D. So I was always thinking in 3D."<ref name=1UP/>

He soon followed with the 3D-esque third-person shooter game Space Harrier later that year. Showing his interest in Ferraris, Suzuki created the driving simulator Out Run, which was released in 1986. Although it didn't officially feature a Ferrari, the player controlled a car that looked almost exactly like one. Out Run offered players a wide variety of driving paths and routes to complete the game, adding elements of nonlinear gameplay and increasing replay value. It also featured a radio with three songs to choose from as players drove through the wide variety of landscapes. At the Golden Joystick Awards, Out Run was awarded the Game of the Year award.<ref name=CVG/> Suzuki had been interested in 3D technology since his days in college.<ref name="nintendolife"/><ref name="Historia"/> Space Harrier and Out Run had graphics similar to 3D, but could not fully utilize the capabilities.

Suzuki's later hits included the jet fighting After Burner series in the late 1980s and the roller coaster kart racer Power Drift in 1988. Improving on the "Super Scaler" technology and road scrolling effects of Hang-On and Out Run, Power Drift created "all of its track layouts with flat bitmaps" to simulate a "wholly 3D space using strictly 2D technology."<ref name=HCG101/>

In 1990, Suzuki brought out a spiritual sequel to After Burner called G-LOC. It featured the R360, a gyroscopic motion cabinet that rotated 360 degrees to give players the realistic illusion of flying a fighter jet.<ref name=":1">Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref name="Historia"/>

Yu Suzuki introduced and spearheaded the Model series of arcade hardware which would help lay the foundation for 3D arcade games for AM2 but other arcade departments at Sega as well<ref name = 1UP/> In 1992, they released the 3D Formula 1 racer Virtua Racing, which was considered one of, if not the most, realistic-looking arcade games on the market at that time. GameSpot listed it as one of the 15 most influential video games of all time, commenting: "It wasn't the first fully polygonal game on the market ... but along with Virtua Fighter, Sega's 1993 release on the same hardware, it was one of the games alongside several others from different rival company developers that popularized polygonals to the masses."<ref name=gamespot/>

In 1993, Suzuki created Virtua Fighter, the first 3D fighting game, which became enormously popular and spawned a series of sequels and spinoffs.<ref name="gccx" /> It inspired many 3D fighting games such as the Tekken and Soul Calibur series.<ref name=gradar_suzuki/> Some of the Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) staff involved in the creation of the original PlayStation console credit Virtua Fighter as inspiration for the PlayStation's 3D graphics hardware. According to SCE's former producer Ryoji Akagawa and chairman Shigeo Maruyama, the PlayStation was originally being considered as a 2D focused hardware, and it wasn't until the success of Virtua Fighter in the arcades that they decided to design the PlayStation as a 3D focused hardware.<ref name=Wired/> 1UP listed Virtua Fighter as one of the 50 most important games of all time. They credited it for creating the 3D fighting game genre, and more generally, demonstrating the potential of 3D polygon human characters (as the first to implement them in a useful way), showing the potential of realistic gameplay (introducing a character physics system and realistic character animations for the time), and introducing fighting game concepts such as the ring-out and the block button.<ref name=1UP_essential50/>

After developing the Sega Model 1, he worked on the development of the Sega Model 2. He acquired Lockheed Martin's military texture mapping technology that cost millions and managed to engineer it down to $50 per chip, which he used to introduce texture-mapped 3D characters with Virtua Fighter 2.<ref name=1UP/> The game industry gained mass-produced texture mapping as a result.<ref name=Gamasutra/> Virtua Fighter 2 (1994) also introduced the use of motion capture animation technology, which was previously limited to the health industry.<ref name=MilitaryTechInterview/> He then led the development of the Sega Model 3, which debuted with Virtua Fighter 3.<ref name=nextgen/> In 1996, Computer and Video Games described Virtua Fighter 3 as "the most astounding display of video game graphic muscle ever in the history of this industry."<ref name=cvg174/> The Virtua Fighter series was recognized by the Smithsonian Institution,<ref name=Interactive/> as an application which made great contributions to society in the field of art and entertainment.<ref name=YsNet/> Suzuki also oversaw most of the home console conversions of AM2's arcade games.<ref name=SaturnMag/>

As a producer, he worked on games such as Daytona USA,<ref name=ysnet/> which featured texture filtering in 1993,<ref name=IGNReap/> and Virtua Cop,<ref name=ysnet/> which in 1994 introduced 3D polygons to light gun shooters,<ref name=IGNNgage/> and influenced the seminal 1997 first-person shooter GoldenEye 007.<ref name=Zoonami/> Listing him in their "75 Most Important People in the Games Industry of 1995", Next Generation summarized that "Nobody has pushed arcade gaming as far as Yu Suzuki, and Suzuki just keeps on pushing."<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Suzuki's Shenmue for the Dreamcast gave rise to a new style of adventure games, bending it away from the typical mold most games of its nature seem to fit into, with Suzuki's own concept denoted as "FREE" ("Full Reactive Eyes Entertainment"). Shenmue was the most expensive game to be developed until Grand Theft Auto IV in 2008, with the whole project costing US$70 million,<ref name=IGNShenmue/> equivalent to US$93 million in 2011.<ref name=InflationCalc/> Shenmue was a major step forward for 3D open world, nonlinear gameplay, touted as offering an unparalleled level of player freedom, giving them full reign to explore an expansive sandbox city with its own day-night cycles, changing weather, and fully voiced non-player characters going about their daily routines. The game's large interactive environments, level of detail and the scope of its urban sandbox exploration has been compared to later sandbox games like Grand Theft Auto III and its sequels, Sega's own Yakuza series, Fallout 3 and Deadly Premonition.<ref name=1UP/><ref name=gamesign /><ref name=Escapist/><ref name=GTM/> The game also revived the quick time event mechanic and coined a name for it, "QTE". The mechanic has since appeared in many later titles, including popular action games such as Resident Evil 4, God of War, Tomb Raider: Legend, Heavenly Sword and Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Conspiracy.<ref name=Escapist2/>

Suzuki's arcade game Ferrari F355 Challenge was a racing simulator created upon a strong partnership with Ferrari. Rubens Barrichello of the F1 Team Ferrari was quoted by Suzuki to "have considered to purchase one for practicing." The game was considered the most accurate racing simulation of the Ferrari F355 possible up until that time.<ref name="gradar_suzuki"/><ref name=IGNF355/>

After Shenmue II, he served as a producer for three last games, OutRun 2 and Virtua Cop 3 in 2003 and Sega Race TV in 2008. Hiroshi Kataoka succeeded him as head of AM2 department.

Departure from Sega

After his departure from AM2, Yu Suzuki was involved in three ill-fated projects as a director. PsyPhi was a touchscreen fighting arcade game, that initially had concepts of curved screens which never got past the concept stage. The game was however successfully completed with standard touchscreens, but was never shipped as it performed poorly at location testing.<ref name=IGN_PSYPHI/> Players' fingers heated up from the friction of moving over the screen, making the game painful to play.<ref name=GamespotShenmue/> Another problem was the viability of the machine in a modern arcade environment due to arcade operators preferring cheaper cabinets with more standard inputs.<ref name=VGDInterview/> Shenmue Online was part of Sega's initiative to penetrate the rising Asian MMO RPG markets.<ref name=IGN_ShenmueOnline/> With the withdrawal of Sega's online division in China,<ref name=China/> development of Shenmue Online was quietly cancelled.<ref name=GS_ShenmueOnline/> The development of Shenmue Online cost Sega and JCEntertainment almost $26 million.<ref name = GS_SOCost/><ref name=IGN_SOCost/> Another MMO called Pure Breed never got past the concept stage. It involved a western surrealist art style, and revolved around pet and human relationships.<ref name=Polygon/>

In the spring of 2009, rumors surfaced that Yu Suzuki would step down from Sega after 26 years of employment. However, an article written by Brendan Sinclair, a reporter for the American video game journalism website GameSpot, stated the rumors to be false and that an anonymous representative for Sega of America revealed that Suzuki was in fact not retiring, but staying "in a much more diminished capacity" than in the past. Suzuki planned to officially leave Sega in September 2011 to concentrate on his own development studio Ys Net, while retaining an advisory role within Sega.<ref name=GamasutraJefferyInterview/> His last position at Sega was Creative Officer along with Toshihiro Nagoshi and Hiroshi Kataoka.<ref name=MobyGames/> As of 2019, Suzuki remains as a consult for Sega, and suggested that he might return to the Virtua Fighter franchise.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Ys Net

File:Mark Cerny and Yu Suzuki.jpg

Suzuki and Mark Cerny at Game Developers Conference 2011

In the fall of 2010, Suzuki returned with Shenmue City, developed by Sunsoft and Ys Net (Yu Suzuki's new studio) for Yahoo Games.<ref name=YsNet/><ref name=Andriasang/> In December 2010, 1UP posted an interview with Yu Suzuki. It was his first English interview in several years. It was also a career retrospective conducted by former 1UP Editor in Chief James Mielke with Tak Hirai (both employees at Tetsuya Mizuguchi's Q Entertainment).<ref name=1UP/> In March 2011, Yu Suzuki was at GDC to receive a pioneer award for his body of work.<ref name=GamespotShenmue/> Prior to the award ceremony, he participated in an open panel career retrospective hosted by Mark Cerny. Also at GDC he participated with MEGA64 to record his voice for a parody video on "how Shenmue was meant to end". In December 2011, Yu Suzuki flew to TGS (Toulouse Game Show) in France and participated in an open panel career retrospective. He also participated in an open with Tekken producer Katsuhiro Harada. They talked about their games and fought each other in both of their respected fighting franchises. In 2012, Suzuki designed a mobile game for the Virtua Fighter series, titled Cool Champ.<ref name=coolchamp/> In 2013, Suzuki designed a new shooting game, titled Shooting Wars with Premium Agency; this was Ys Net's first original game unrelated to any of Suzuki's previous Sega franchises.<ref name=PremiumAgency1/><ref name=PremiumAgency2/>

In July 2013, Suzuki traveled to Monaco to attend the Monaco Animé Game Show. On March 19, 2014, Yu Suzuki held a Shenmue postmortem at the Game Developers Conference 2014, with Suzuki discussing the development of Shenmue.<ref name=DigitalSpyGDC/> In June the same year, Yu Suzuki received a "Legend Award" in Barcelona, Spain during Gamelab Barcelona 2014.<ref name=barcelona/>

On June 16, 2015, Shenmue III was revealed at E3 as a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign. It became the fastest game ever to reach the one million dollar funding mark on the Kickstarter platform, ultimately raising 6.33 million dollars.<ref name=shenmue3kickstarter/> Suzuki began his work as director of Shenmue IIITemplate:'s development immediately following the successful funding campaign in July 2015.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> On February 27, 2016, Suzuki appeared as a guest presenter at the annual Monaco Anime Games International Conferences (MAGIC), where he showed images and video clips of the development progress for Shenmue III to conference attendees.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

On June 22, 2022, YS-Net released Air Twister exclusively to Apple Arcade. YS Net has continued to support the game with regular updates and expanded content.<ref name="MV">Template:Cite news</ref>

Announced at the Game Awards 2024, Ys-Net released Steel Paws exclusively to Netflix Games on March 25, 2025. It is an Action-RPG that features a young girl and her robot companions who explore a mysterious tower that emerges from the ground every 100 years.

Personal life

Suzuki said in an interview that while he greatly enjoys creating games, he has relatively little interest in playing them and prefers to spend his free time watching movies and visiting theme parks.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Games developed

Year	Title	Role
1984	Champion Boxing	Director, game designer, programmer<ref name=ysnet>Works of Yu Suzuki, Ys Net</ref>
1985	Hang-On
	Space Harrier
1986	Out Run
1987	After Burner
1988	Power Drift
	Dynamite Düx	Producer<ref name=ysnet>Works of Yu Suzuki, Ys Net</ref>
1989	Sword of Vermilion
1990	G-LOC: Air Battle	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
	GP Rider	Producer<ref name=ysnet/>
1991	Strike Fighter
	Rent a Hero
	F1 Exhaust Note
1992	Arabian Fight
	Virtua Racing	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
	Soreike Kokology	Producer<ref name=ysnet/>
1993	Burning Rival
	Virtua Fighter	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
	Soreike Kokology 2	Producer<ref name=ysnet/>
1994	Daytona USA
	Virtua Cop
	Virtua Fighter 2	Director, producer
	Desert Tank	Producer<ref name=ysnet/>
1995	Virtua Striker
	Virtua Cop 2
	Fighting Vipers
1996	Virtua Fighter Kids
	Virtua Fighter 3	Director, producer
	Sonic the Fighters	Producer
	Scud Race
	Fighters Megamix
1997	Digital Dance Mix Vol.1 Namie Amuro
	Virtua Striker 2
	All Japan Pro-Wrestling Featuring Virtua
1998	Fighting Vipers 2
	Daytona USA 2
1999	F355 Challenge	Director, producer
	Outtrigger	Producer<ref name=ysnet/>
	18 Wheeler: American Pro Trucker
	Shenmue	Director, producer, writer
2001	Beach Spikers	Producer
	Virtua Fighter 4	Director, producer
	Shenmue II	Director, producer, writer
2002	The King of Route 66	Executive supervisor
2003	Virtua Cop 3	Executive director
	OutRun 2	Producer<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
2008	Sega Race TV
2010	Shenmue City	Director<ref name=coolchamp/><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
2011	Virtua Fighter: Cool Champ
2013	Bullet Pirates
2014	Virtua Fighter: Fever Combo
2019	Shenmue III	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
2022	Air Twister	Director, producer
2025	Steel Paws

Canceled games

• Propeller Arena – Producer
• Pure Breed – Concept<ref name=Polygon/>
• Psy-Phi – Director, producer
• Shenmue Online – Director

On top of games, Yu Suzuki led the creation of a technical demo "Tower of Babel" prepared for the Dreamcast showcase at Tokyo New Otani Hotel on May 1, 1998.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Hardware developed

• Sega Space Harrier (1985)<ref name=1UP/>
• Sega Model 1 (1992)<ref name=1UP/>
• Sega Model 2 (1993)<ref name=1UP/>
• Sega Model 3 (1996)<ref name=nextgen/>
• Dreamcast (1998)<ref name =RedditAMA/>
• Sega NAOMI (1998)<ref name =RedditAMA/>

Further reading

• Benjamin Berget. Yū Suzuki - Le Maître de Sega (de l'arcade à Shenmue). 2015, Geeks-Line, Template:ISBN Template:In lang

External links

• Template:Twitter
• Yu Suzuki profile on MobyGames
• [https://www.imdb.com/{{#if: 0962779

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• YS Net (official site)
• System16 - The Arcade Museum
• Interview with Yu Suzuki and Will Wright, June 2002