Should we expand this thread to cover Sega people saying Sega things on Bluesky? Because this account is probably Naoto Ohshima: https://bsky.app/profile/naotoohshima.bsky.social I can't be certain it's him since he doesn't seem to have posted a link to it on Twitter. But the account is followed by TRIPPY so I think it's probably legit.
Fully didn't clock until now that @hyasuhi6 is the little-seen Yasuhiro Hayashida - who doesn't have a page on the wiki yet, despite planning several mid to late 1990s AM1 titles such as Motor Raid and Brave Firefighters, and receiving special thanks for numerous others. His planning work on Harley Davidson & L.A. Riders can also also be added to those, as he just posted about it - which brought my attention to this. Apparently there's even an as yet publicly undiscovered secret code that makes a full staff roll appear in the attract mode as well (?). And naturally a bunch of his other posts say interesting things: AM1 being a 'jack of all trades', providing development support on the Tecmo and Jaleco titles for Model 2, tidbits about sound designers and composers on things like Cool Riders, etc. Definitely a lot more stuff there to be dug out and referenced.
I've added a page for Yasuhiro Hayashida. Plus added some of those bits to Harley Davidson & L.A. Riders (Production credits and Hidden content), more of the Waku Waku games, Dead or Alive, Super GT 24h and Over Rev. I thought maybe Sega Arcade History might have had a mention of how to do that Production credits code, since it has a lot of hidden content instructions, but no. Hayashida's right that probably only him and the lead programmer knows the code. Not sure those TECMO and JALECO games will show up on the Sega AM1 softography though. They're linked as Support, but seems support doesn't show on regular companies, and judging by the DMP Entertainment I made earlier, developer links don't show up on support companies. Those Model 2 games also don't show up in JALECO's softography, but I have no idea why. These both could very well be one-off oddities too. I don't really know if there's much to use that final tweet for, since it is all known stuff by now, just has him also appreciating the facts. Would have been a surprise that Makito Nomiya composed for Cool Riders if we didn't have credits from the ROM. Also he's wrong about Hiroshi Kawaguchi composing The House of the Dead. Also seems he planned and directed on Inu no Osanpo. https://twitter.com/hyasuhi6/status/1300978580508176384 https://twitter.com/hyasuhi6/status/1301334083759255552 Other cool threads: The history of AM1 and fishing games (not sure if I should trust him about AM1 working on Sports Fishing. They're before his time and he sometimes gets things wrong) He talks with Tomohiro "REW" Yamamoto about the rumour that a lot of AM staff members moved to CS in 1996 A couple times he praised Hiroyuki Taguchi (1) (2) This isn't really about what he shared, but it led me to the fact the ASTRO CITY mini account confirmed that Makoto Uchida was a test pilot for AFTER BURNER. His experience and observations of the mobile games industry. Some SEGA AGES 2500 stuff, this post showing some photos of the developer commentary that's in most of the manuals (we're missing scans for almost all of them. 2 of the commentaries weren't listed as part of AM3 before this)
Sega used to use PowerPoint presentations to create graphics announcing new content for games like Maimai. The more you know?
I was looking for mentions of Yutaka Sugano from Roppyaku Tsurumi (both worked on the arcade version of Michael Jackson's Moonwalker) and I found this. The two of them with Tadashi Koizumi (in the middle, Tsurumi on the left and Sugano on the right), who Tsurumi says is the designer of SEGA TETRIS (referring to the original arcade game, no Koizumi in the 1999 one) and the designer of the consumer version of Moonwalker (credits the planner/game designer as KOI, a name that shows up in TETRIS' high score table). He also says the story of TETRIS is interesting and should be written in a book). EDIt: Here's another tweet where he says the designer of TETRIS later made the Mega Drive version of MOONWALKER. And here's one where he mentions the Mega Drive version's developers K泉 and Sound'sK田 (K-zumi and K-ta, the latter is Hiroshi Kubota) He also showed 2 documents for MJ games. One is the consumer version of Moonwalker. Not a lot of detail on it, just an outline of a logo, Tadashi Koizumi's signature, and a mention of which Research & Development department made it (and the number is out of screen so doesn't help). The other is a game I've never seen before: MICHAEL JACKSON'S DANGEROUS for SEGA-CD, with the cover art from Michael's Dangerous album. There's some more info written on it: TADASHI KOIZUMI Assistant Manager CS Planning & Control Division (although it looks like CP to me, so not sure it's actually CS) Dangerous is one of the eras in Michael's history, the one he was one when visiting SEGA of Japan in 1992, and I thought I had found a box art for it googling, but no, that's an entirely different (and probably fake) game. Thank you ted for fact-checking me. Thank you me for reediting it many times for forgetful mistakes.
Surprise to me, former programmer Yoshiki Ooka's been on Twitter for 10 years, but apparently only started tweeting a couple years ago [Correction: He's more of a replies guy, but still wasn't too active until 2020], mainly about his work on Shadow Dancer and Gain Ground. https://twitter.com/ookayoshiki/status/1640690046226546690 Most recently back in March he did a big thread on Gain Ground bugs, the different ports of the game and the game's successes and failings. Accidentally because they had a conversation, I see sound designer Masaru Setsumaru made a new Twitter account this year.
Tadashi Takezaki has done a thread about his experiences dealing with Mega Drive games and things like Sega Game Station in the PR sector of the company during the 90s
In more big thread info dumping news: Yutaka Ito has been doing a long one detailing things about how they developed Spikeout
It's obviously getting to be a hassle, archiving individual tweets, so wanted to get something more efficient. I'd never used Thread Reader App, but it seemed successful for making a long-lasting reference. https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1751822646151622836.html Version in Wayback Machine (the quote tweet with Tetsuya Kaku didn't get preserved) Version in archive.today (the quote tweet with Tetsuya Kaku DID get preserved)
I'm not a big Nagoshi-san fan by Spikeout was and still is amazing and the XBox version is even better than the Arcade game just lacking in the gfx dept a little. I so wished at the time that SEGA used the Spikeout engine to make a Police Story Jackie Chan game
https://twitter.com/nakayuji/status/1776961415074697620 He's back. Though not talking about Sega again yet.
An interview Dreamcast development: Edit: oh, this is a topic specifically about twitter. I don't know where to post this video, then
Yeah, as far as I know, we haven't got a "share all kinds of new developer things" thread. Could always start one though. I'm too chicken.
According to Yutaka Ito, two unnamed veteran Sega programmers at RGG have just retired. One originally worked as a designer on numerous Master System and Mega Drive games and went on to develop the core of the Dragon Engine; the other was recently leading their research into AI. When Ito asked him what his first work at Sega had been, he genuinely said he'd been involved way back when with the Sega AI Computer. Can anyone track either of them down based on just this?
I think that first one must be Naohiro Warama. He was a graphic designer on Mega Drive games (and probably Master System since he seems to have worked at CS2, which was where all the late Master System/mid-Game Gear development was happening alongside Mega Drive and Mega-CD), and eventually became a programmer for their physics engine. Okunari also has a reply mentioning Godzilla and Batman, probably referencing those characters being used in The Revenge of Shinobi/Comparisons. Looks like Warama was the main person responsible for that because of misunderstandings with Noriyoshi Ohba. I'm not so sure about Mr. AI. Tamotsu Maeno and Fumiaki Hara have both gotten AI Program Lead credits once. Panzer Dragoon Orta is each of their earliest credits, but Smilebit's president Shun Arai did work on the AI Computer as well, so there's some connection there. Maeno's at the bottom of the level programmers credits which often means the person joined later in development, so Hara (the single person entrusted with the Dragon Action program) feels like the lead suspect.
Haven't discerned who it is, but randomly managed to find a former Sega sound developer who headed soundboard design (most notably on the Model 1 and 3) at Hardware R&D. They have been quietly posting away decent detail about their work for a good few years now. Too many things to go over in terms of that really, but via it, there is also a link to another profile of theirs which goes over their whole development timeline at Sega from 1989 onward. Which brings up some pretty eye-opening stuff - apparently they developed health issues whilst working extreme overtime there, left in 2000 because of them, and don't want to see any of their former colleagues again. And their work related to the Sega H1 Board (i.e. the one that was only ever used twice for Cool Riders plus Aqua Stage) is referred to as "黒歴史"; as in "an embarrassing skeleton in my closet".
I'd love to know more about Osomatsu's production and hell, who worked on on it. That game was so cobbled together I'm sure there's a crazy story behind it
Okunari is reckoning the original NiGHTS website (albeit with a different URL) may well be the oldest official Sega example still online as it once was, in response to some more Sega Fax Club postings from Tadashi Takezaki. Have we ever tried to quantify this?