Toshihiro Nagoshi

Toshihiro Nagoshi (名越 稔洋) is a Japanese video game producer, director and designer.

He was the chief creative officer for Sega until 2021 when he became creative director.

He went on to be the general director of Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio, and later became a member of the board of directors for Atlus.

He joined Sega in 1989.

After 30 years in the company, Nagoshi left Sega to join NetEase in late 2021, where he founded the studio Nagoshi Studio.

Nagoshi graduated from Tokyo Zokei University with a degree in movie production and joined Sega shortly thereafter, working for the second arcade department (AM2) under Yu Suzuki as a CG designer.

His first title as a designer was Virtua Racing.

It was then when he found his niche at Sega due to his study of movies being useful at adjusting and implementing the right camera angles in early 3D games; this was a major turning point for him at Sega.

Before that point, he stated, "It really didn't take long for me to feel like I had come to the wrong place. But when I said I was lucky before, it's because during the time I began working, 2D was on its way out, and the industry was switching to 3D."

According to Nagoshi, despite the fact the change to 3D had occurred, "nobody had actually studied the techniques needed to work in a 3D space."

He knew the basics and gave them advice; it was easier for him to apply his knowledge after the transition to 3D took place.

Afterwards, he worked on Daytona USA, where he was made director.

He came into this role after managing to edit a preview movie of the game for an arcade show.

Daytona USA was the first game to use the Sega Model 2 arcade hardware which produced very advanced graphics and was developed jointly with General Electrics, which was located in the US.

When Nagoshi paid them a visit, he happened to see a NASCAR race, which inspired Daytona USA initially.

Tom Petit, president of Sega's arcade division in America also was in favour of NASCAR.

In Japan, only F1 racing games were popular, though Nagoshi decided to not develop one.

He also says that he stayed persistent in creating a more difficult kind of game.

The development of Daytona USA brought great responsibility for Nagoshi as he was promoted into leadership positions relatively fast.

His next project, Scud Race, became once again a very technologically advanced game, however due to expenses, made less money than Daytona USA, though still made profit.

Afterwards, he mentioned he did not want to make any racing games anymore, thinking that he graduated from the genre.

Next, he worked on Spikeout, a cooperative beat em 'up with up to four players.

It was well received by players, although arcade operators complained that it didn't bring in much money, due to the players not needing many credits if they properly work together.

Shenmue was the last time he worked with AM2 and Yu Suzuki; he first was a supervisor on the project but was dissatisfied with how the game went and asked for his own development division, which later became Amusement Vision.

However, he was called in 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.

The CEO knew that Nagoshi was the only person that Suzuki trusted.

Nagoshi has said that there is no developer that he learnt more from than Suzuki.

In 2000, Sega restructured its arcade and console development teams into nine semi-autonomous studios headed by the company's top designers.

Nagoshi became president of the studio Amusement Vision, and he was not sure on how to approach his new role at first.

He thought that consistently making profit would be for the best.

His approach worked, as he was promoted to officer alongside Yuji Naka and Hisao Oguchi, who also ran profitable studios in the form of Naka's Sonic Team and Oguchi's Hitmaker.

Nagoshi became interested in console development as a result of Sega leaving the hardware business.

Specifically, he was interested in developing for Nintendo and acquired information about the GameCube at an early stage.

The CEO of Sega at the time complained that games became too expensive to make, and Nagoshi told him that they couldn't do it any cheaper.

As a type of protest, he developed a very simple and inexpensive game that just needed a lever to control with no buttons, just to prove that it was possible.

That game was Super Monkey Ball, which initially launched as just Monkey Ball in the arcades.

It didn't sell well in Japan, but became a hit overseas.

The CEO was impressed, assuming that Nagoshi had the western market in mind, which Nagoshi didn't at all.

As a game developer, Nagoshi wanted to know how Nintendo worked, and wanted to be a sub-contractor for them.

After some thought in regards to which Nintendo franchise he wanted to work on, Nagoshi ended up developing an entry for the F-Zero franchise, which was F-Zero GX.