Masaki Matsuno

Masaki Matsuno
Employment history: Sega Enterprises (1985-04 – 2000-06) Divisions: Sega AM4 Sega AM5 Sega AM6 Sega Mechatro
Role(s): Engineer, General Manager

Masaki Matsuno (松野 雅樹) is a Japanese engineer and designer. He joined Sega in April 1985, and with the amusement machine-focused AM4, AM5 and AM6 departments engineered cabinets and hardware for many of the company's most successful titles during the late 1980s and 1990s.

Matsuno appears to have left Sega at an unspecified time some point after the mid 90s, and has continued to work in game development at other companies.

Career

Alongside fellow recruits such as Satoshi Mifune, Masaki Matsuno joined Sega in April 1985. Training work for new employees saw him organise warehouse storage; despite the company's buy-out by CSK a year before his arrival, Matsuno has recalled sorting vinyl jukebox records and English documents, both vestiges of Sega's previous foreign ownership, alongside meeting David Rosen. After contributing to Sega's first taikan game, Hang-On, in its later stages of development, his debut project was Studio 128 follow-up Space Harrier, in which he played a lead role in chassis design. The success of these then led to head design positions on the similarly-popular OutRun and After Burner cabinets. With his role in the company established after a mere two years through his frequent voluntary overtime work, Matsuno was promoted to be a section chief of arcade cabinet production with the approval of Hayao Nakayama.

His most complex project began in 1989, when he and overseas Sega personnel were ordered by Hisashi Suzuki to inspect an unlicensed rotational After Burner cabinet discovered on location test in Perth, Australia. On the belief that he and Sega could do much better than it, Matsuno began work on what would later become the R360, leading a newly-assembled team of fresh developers including Masao Yoshimoto. After the R360 was completed in 1990, Matsuno then headed cabinet development for Rad Mobile and Virtua Racing. By this time, Sega's cabinet production personnel had been collectively grouped as AM4, of which he was a manager. He also collaborated with the attraction-focused AM5 to create Virtua Formula and VR-1, designing the Mega Visor Display. The mid 1990s additionally saw Matsuno carry out head planning and design on the smaller Astro City, Blast City, and Super Megalo multi-purpose cabinets.

After a special thanks in Star Wars Arcade and latterly production on Aqua Stage with AM6, and 4 years later a producer credit in Ring Out 4x4 with Sega Mechatro, further credits for Matsuno do not appear to exist. He left Sega in June 2000 and went on to develop casino hardware for Aruze. He has worked for Yunou Gaming since at least 2009 and more recently has served as its CEO.

Production history

• Hang-On (Hang-On hardware; 1985) — Mechanical Engineer
• Space Harrier (Hang-On hardware; 1985) — Mechanical Engineer
• OutRun (OutRun hardware; 1986) — Mechanical Engineer
• After Burner (X Board; 1987) — Mechanical Engineer
• Galaxy Force (Y Board; 1988) — Mechanical Engineers
• Super Monaco GP (X Board; 1989) — Mechanical Engineers
• Rad Mobile (System 32; 1990) — Cabinet Product by
• Megalo 50 (??; 1992)
• Virtua Racing (Model 1; 1992) — Mechanical Effect Technician
• Super Megalo (??; 1993) — Planning & Development
• Astro City (??; 1993) — Planning & Development
• Virtua Formula (Model 1; 1993) — Production Leader
• Star Wars Arcade (Model 1; 1993) — Special Thanks
• Aqua Stage (H1 Board; 1995) — Producer
• Blast City (??; 1996) — Planning & Development
• Ring Out 4x4 (NAOMI; 1999) — Producers

Hardware

• R360 (Mid-size attraction; 1990) — Mechanical Engineers

Photographs

Main article: Photos of Masaki Matsuno

External links

• Video Game Storytellers Part 19: Sega's genes, passed down to the next generation by the development team of the ultimate sensory game cabinet, R360. interview with Fumio Kurokawa at 4Gamer.net (Japanese)