Former SEGA executive: Yuji Naka is a “miserable person” and “a horrible human being”

Former SEGA executive Mike Fischer, who worked at the company during its heyday and was working at the company when they were given the pitch to create a ‘Mario killer’ has firmly criticised Yuji Naka. in a new interview he claims Yuji Naka stole credit for the creation of Sonic the Hedgehog. He said that while Naka was the programmer, Naoto Ōshima was responsible for creating Sonic as a character and Hirokazu Yasuhara was key to the game design. Speaking about Yuji Naka, Mike Fischer candidly said that “He is literally the most miserable person I have ever worked with in games or anything else in my life, just a a horrible human being, and you can quote me on that. As you know, he’s also now also a convicted felon.” It’s a really insightful interview so I suggest giving it a read.

Fischer briefly on SEGA:

Mike Fischer: Yeah, I was there for all of it. I was there for the birth of Sonic the Hedgehog, and when the memo came out, they said to every employee, “We want to come up with the new Mario-killer mascot character. We want everyone to come up with an idea.” I watched them pick the winners. I watched Yuji Naka steal credit for it, and yeah, I was very hands-on. The Genesis had already shipped in America by the time I joined, but the Game Gear still hadn’t come out. I was there from the start, translating the repair documents for the service teams. I named the Gear-to Gear cable; that was my contribution! Yeah, I was there for everything for the Game Gear.

On Yuji Naka as a person:

Mike Fischer: “I should have. He is literally the most miserable person I have ever worked with in games or anything else in my life, just a a horrible human being, and you can quote me on that. As you know, he’s also now also a convicted felon.”

On Yuji Naka taking the credit for Sonic:

“Well, the thing for me was that I saw him at one point get up on stage and receive a lifetime achievement award for creating Sonic the Hedgehog. I saw him give an interview where he talked about why he decided to make Sonic blue, and, as you know, he wasn’t responsible for any of that. That was all Naoto Ōshima, and Ōshima-san is one of the most wonderful, kindhearted people you’ll ever meet in your life. The only reason that I agreed to talk to the guy who wrote Console Wars was because I wanted to set the record straight, and I’m really proud that it is now on the record. There were three of them right? There was Ōshima, who was the character creator…

A redeeming story about Naka:

“I will say one of the few redeeming stories I’ve heard about Naka was he became aware that there was this team of pirates in China that was taking his Dreamcast games and making bootleg versions for PlayStation. So, he bought their company and hired them to do all of his porting work.”

When Yuji Naka was told by SEGA America that they wanted some mature games:

“Naka just went fucking ballistic on me, yelling at me, saying I wanted to make porno games. Literally, I’ve never seen someone foam at the mouth, but he had literally like foamy spit at the corners of his mouth. “How many games have you made? How many hits have you delivered? Who are you to come here and tell us?” And I’m like, “Dude, I’m just here to tell you where the hockey puck is going. These are the trends in the U.S. We are diverging in the games we make and the games that the market wants” and did not go wrong,” Fischer said