Hideki Sato Farewell: SEGA's Designer Passes Away
The former president oversaw virtually all hardware development
We unfortunately receive news of the passing of another great name in the gaming industry: we are talking about Hideki Sato, one of the pillars within SEGA who also served as President of the company from 2001 to 2003.
Sato joined the house of Sonic long before the blue hedgehog was even imagined: we are talking about 1971, when the Japanese-American company progressively shifted its production from electromechanical machines like slot machines and similar devices to electronic equipment, starting with Arcade cabinets.
Hideki Sato was one of the main promoters and designers of all SEGA consoles, starting with the SG-1000: his signature is on Master System, Mega Drive [or Genesis as Americans call it], Jaguar, and Dreamcast. "We knew how to make arcade machines, we didn't know much about console development - he once told Famitsu - They sold well, so we started to get stars in our eyes." His role was secured in 1989 when he became director of SEGA's Research and Development department. In 2001, as mentioned, he briefly replaced the previous president Shoichiro Irimajiri before Hisao Oguchi's tenure.
Sato leaves us at the age of 77.