Steve Hanawa

From Sega Retro


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Steve Hanawa is a Japanese game designer and programmer. He is a former Sega programmer and executive instrumental in designing and programming several early Sega arcade games. Most notable was Turbo, which hospitalised him for a brief period, but went on to create the third-person racing game genre, He also created other arcade titles at the time, such as Space Odyssey, Monster Bash, and Sindbad Mystery.

He travelled to America in the mid-1980s and played a key role in establishing Sega of America and bringing the Sega Master System to market. He is also credited for "discovering" Tetris and Columns, prompting Sega of Japan to acquire licenses for these titles in the late 1980s.

Steve went to work for ASCII in 1991. He now works for DiMAGIC.

Production history