Hideki Sato, designer of all Sega's consoles, has died

Source: Hacker News

Hideki Sato, the designer behind virtually every Sega console and the company’s former president, died at age 77. Japanese games outlet Beep21 reported that Sato passed away this weekend.

Career at Sega

• Joined Sega in 1971.
• Served as acting president from 2001 to 2003.
• Left the company in 2008.

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.

Philosophy on Console Development

Sato explained that Sega’s home‑console development was always influenced by its arcade work. In an interview with Famitsu, he said:

“From the beginning, Sega’s home console development has always been influenced by our arcade development.”

Early Projects

Our first 8‑bit machine was the SC‑3000, a PC aimed at beginner‑level users. At that time, Sega only produced arcade games, making the SC‑3000 a significant new challenge.

Mega Drive (Genesis)

Sato described the development of the 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.”

Dreamcast

Regarding the Dreamcast, the console that ultimately ended Sega’s hardware era, Sato said the keyword for its development was “play and communication.” He explained:

“The ultimate form of communication is a direct connection with another, and we included the modem and the linkable VMUs for that purpose.
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.”