Hail To The Chief, Nagoshi-San!!!

This has been news for days but I wanted to wait it out and tried to plan out my words.

Announced that the new personnel of the SEGA SAMMY Group, a director of Sega Minoru Hiroshi Nagoshi CCO（Chief Creative Officer）

I look like a girl in this pic, haw haw

In other words, Toshihiro Nagoshi (yes, THAT drunk playboy) is the CCO of Sega, the head of the creative department, responsible for all creative aspects handled by the company  from concept through production.  He also sets the tone for creative philosophy and the standards for the quality of its workmanship, and thus is the key person responsible for the effectiveness of all stuff produced by the company.  In other words, he tells the dev teams what games to make and how they will look.  Thanks Answers.com.

Link

*48 hours later after getting wasted*

Ok, where was I.  So Nagoshi, who is responsible for setting up his own studio for making tons of Yakuza games is in charge of Sega games.  Great, huh?

I think there's a glimmer of hope in all of this.  First of all, Nagoshi may be weird but at the very least he's making Sega money.  Yakuza, love it or hate it, is keeping Sega on the respirator.  Second, I had no idea who was the previous CCO so a familiar face is better than one that is not.  Oh, and we're only one "come to Jesus" moment away from getting a new Daytona, Scud Race, whatever.  All someone needs to do is knock some sense into him and we win.

But is Nagoshi going to assign the right games to the right people?  As of right now, Yu Suzuki and Yuji Naka are AWOL.  If Nagoshi were to demand that any new racing game would be made, is he going to hand it to Amusement Vision and then call it a day???  GIVE IT TO AM2!!!  DON'T REPEAT WHAT YOU DID WITH THE SUB-PAR DREAMCAST VERSION!!!  If AM2 is not involved in a new racing game, then it will suck PERIOD.  Lone exception would be F-Zero since they did AV did a good job with the GC version.    But other than that, give AM2 props where its due.

But even all this talk about AM2 has me wondering...what's going on over there???  Remember, Yu Suzuki doesn't work there anymore.  Are they still intact?  It's been 8 years since they've made OutRun 2, 14 since Daytona 2, and 18 since Daytona 1.  That is a LONG TIME.  Organizations change over time.  Really, even if AM2 is still around, do you think they give a damn about Daytona, OutRun, or any new racing games?

Case in point, we need NEW LEADERS!!!  We need more people like Yu Suzuki, Yuji Naka, Makoto Osaki, and Tetsuya Mizuguchi (Sega Rally guy who I vaguely mentioned).  Instead, what do we get?  Wobbly white guys like Mike Hayes who think it's "boss" of them to publish a yearly superhero game like Captain America/Iron Man/Thor and the occasional Dreamcast port and then they're in business??  NO, THAT'S LAME!!!

Geez, Nagoshi, I give you a lot of crap on this blog but the reason why is because I CARE ABOUT SEGA.  Cause frankly, you're the only true solider on the frontlines left.  So whenever I get mad, it's for a good cause.  Us fans are TRYING TO HELP YOU, PLEASE LISTEN TO US!!!

DAYUM, the left pic looks like a Barbie doll!!  Scary stuff there.

I don't know what to say, man.  With every passing year, Sega and the AM2 crew get a year older.  And it gets harder and harder to convince old guys to go back to finish the work they started 15+ years ago.  Time is valuable and we can't spend it pissing away at EA on Madden sequels.  You get what I'm driving at here?

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And one more thing to point out.  Nagoshi did a brief interview with SegaBITS on Binary Domain.  And don't get me wrong--Binary Domain looks good but I don't know if it can hang with the big boys like Halo or Gears of War--we shall see.  But here's a clip from the interview:

Before SEGA teamed up with Nintendo for their Mario & Sonic Olympic games, your team at Amusement Vision helped develop the excellent F-Zero GX for GameCube. Have you been in talks to bring the F-Zero franchise back, or maybe doing another game in that style?

Nagoshi: I’d like that if I ever have the chance. Racing games are not so popular lately, so it would be fun if I could suggest some ideas from different angles. Whether I’ve consider it in details…now that’s a secret.

FLASHBACK to 2004 when Nagoshi gave this interview:

Speaking of which, any chance of a new Daytona anytime in the near future?

Nagoshi: We don’t have any public plans at the moment. But right now, driving games like Need for Speed and Burnout are big in the US, so we’ve had thoughts about a Daytona 3.

This makes me that as much as I (and maybe you) hate mainstream racers like Burnout or Need for Speed, we NEED these games to stick around for Sega to release more racing games.  Obviously, I have no say in whether or not other racing games are successful but that's a bitter pill to swallow.  Geez, if the best that game devs can do nowadays is miserable bombs games like Split/Second, Blur, and every NFS game imaginable, then we're screwed.  Save the game industry one racing game at a time.  Each one of us can't do much on our own, but if a lot of us work with the same mindset...then we can breach the castle walls and storm the Sega building!!!  This is a team effort, not just me on a stupid blog.

Nagoshi also said this in the 2012 interview:

Recently, SEGA re-released Daytona USA. Of all the games you’ve been involved with, which one would you most like to see re-released on current systems?

Nagoshi: Well, it’s surely an honorable thing to hear how people like my past titles, but to be honest it makes me feel a little melancholic at the same time. I’m sure those past titles are being re-released because they were good games, but I’m quite confident that I can make better games than what I could do in the past. So personally, there is no particular title that I’d want to see re-released. That’s just my personal thought, and I definitely appreciate all the fans that still love my past work!

Thanks Nagoshi, we still have faith in you.

EDIT: One more thing.  Sega, YOU NEED TO GET YU SUZUKI BACK ON BOARD.  Why?  Because he's old...and wise.  He's been around for decades.  Even if you throw out all the Shenmue 3 nonsense, we should trust his judgment, nuff said.  Who else at Sega should we trust??  Besides Sonic the Hedgehog, he BUILT SEGA.  So give him props, please.