Toshihiro Nagoshi

From Sega Retro

Toshihiro nagoshi.jpg
Toshihiro Nagoshi
Place of birth: Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi, Japan
Date of birth: 1965-06-17[1] (age 58)
Employment history:
Divisions:
Divisions:
Sega ( – 2021-10-08[4])
Role(s): Designer, Director, Producer, Executive
Education: Tokyo University of Art and Design

Toshihiro Nagoshi (名越 稔洋) is a Japanese video game developer and executive, a Sega employee until 2021 and since then the CEO of Nagoshi Studio. He joined Sega Enterprises in 1989 and was assigned to R&D Dept. 8 as a background artist, as seen first on G-LOC: Air Battle. He became a producer and director with racing games Daytona USA and Scud Race, and later filled the same roles for games such as Spikeout: Digital Battle Online, Planet Harriers and the Super Monkey Ball. He founded the AM11 department and was its president when it was the subsidiary company Amusement Vision.

After his involvement with the first 2 Yakuza games and Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz, Nagoshi was promoted to a general producer position within Sega and was given further executive promotions over the following decade. Before leaving Sega, he was the company's Chief Creative Officer, general director of Ryu ga Gotoku Studio and a member of the board of directors for Atlus.

Career

Toshihiro Nagoshi graduated from the Tokyo University of Art and Design in 1989 and joined the company shortly thereafter, working for Sega R&D 8 under Yu Suzuki as a CG designer. He quickly ascended the ranks, becoming the manager of Sega AM2's design section in 1993[5][6] and in 1998 became the manager of Sega AM11. He was also very integral into making Shenmue come to life. Although the credits only tell us he was a supervisor; he has revealed the development story. He was called by the CEO at the time to get the game finished, and as a result, he had to serve as producer and director on the final months of development. He recognized that as one of the turning points in his career.[7]

When Sega AM11 became Amusement Vision, Nagoshi took the helm as president. He designed and created AM2's arguably most famous racing game Daytona USA, as well as the popular titles Super Monkey Ball and Yakuza.

After the collaboration with Nintendo on F-Zero GX, he would receive a call from the company, requesting the source code of the game and wanting him to explain how they made such game. Nagoshi, who already was the president of Amusement Vision, achieved something that not even Nintendo could figure out. He stated, "After it released, I got a call from Nintendo. They said they wanted to see all the source code for the game, and wanted me to explain how we'd made that game, in that timeframe and with that budget, in detail. They were wondering how we'd done it - they couldn't figure it out. We were able to achieve something a lot higher than what Nintendo had expected."[8]

He started getting executive credits unrelated to his current division from October of 2003 onwards. This stopped in April 2005, when he only managed the New Entertainment R&D Dept. He returned to managing Sega's entire output when New Entertainment turned into CS1 in the middle of 2008.

On April 1, 2012, following a 2012 reshuffling, Nagoshi became the CCO of Sega.[9] In October 2013, once Sega Sammy purchased the bankrupt Index Corporation under the shell corporation, Sega Dream Corporation, Nagoshi was appointed as a member of the board of directors for the reformed Atlus.[10] In October 2021, he announced his departure from SEGA as part of a 10th anniversary message posted on the Ryu ga Gotoku Studio website. [11]

For game development, he frequently collaborated with Tetsuya Kaku, Daisuke Sato, Jun Tokuhara, Masayoshi Yokoyama and Masayoshi Kikuchi while at SEGA. In the executive environment, he has worked with Naoya Tsurumi, Osamu Ohashi, and Haruki Satomi.

Production history

Games

Music

Magazine articles

Main article: Toshihiro Nagoshi/Magazine articles.

Interviews

Some or all of the following content should be mirrored on Sega Retro (or Retro CDN).

Photographs

Main article: Photos of Toshihiro Nagoshi

External links

References