Yuji Naka is a man famous for two things: being credited as the 'creator' of Sonic the Hedgehog and, more recently, of pleading guilty to serious insider trading charges. Mike Fischer is a games industry veteran who has worked everywhere from Sega to Square Enix to Epic to Microsoft.
These two men, a very long time ago, used to work with each other at Sega, and in a recent interview with Sega-16 Fischer recalls several moments where his paths crossed with Naka. Rather than being standard video games industry platitudes like"I learned a lot from him", "We really supported each other" or"It was a great time", it turns out Fischer hates Naka's fuckin guts, and would like the world to know exactly why.
Some examples include the creation of Sonic:
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.
Then there's the time Fischer, while at Microsoft years later, got to work with some of his old Sega colleagues again on Blue Dragon:
...it was wonderful to go back and and reconnect with those people. It was less pleasant to deal with Naka-san (Yuji Naka). I didn’t miss him and wasn’t happy to work with him again.
And here are Fischer's thoughts on Naka wanting to change Billy Hatcher And The Giant Egg's name to...Giant Cock:
He is literally the most miserable person I have ever worked with in games or anything else in my life, just a horrible human being, and you can quote me on that. As you know, he’s also now also a convicted felon.
I need to stress I'm just posting some select excerpts here, there's so much more throughout the interview, which is a fantastic read not just for the drama, but just for gaining a fuller understanding of how Sega operated internally at the time as well! There's stuff there about the creation of Sonic and the company structure and the place of women leaders within it that I'd never known before, so if reading about a man talking shit has inspired you to spare some time for a greater understanding of Sega history, please go read the full thing.
