People say Shigeru Miyamoto, creator of Mario and more, is the Father of Video Games. If he's the father, then who's the mother?
Yu Suzuki, creator of titles like Virtua Fighter and Out Run, reckons it's him.
"If Miyamoto was the father of gaming, I suppose that makes me the mother," Suzuki tells website 1Up.
Suzuki joined Sega in 1983 and remembers that video games used to have a "bad image."
"I wanted to give it a lively image, bringing gaming to a brighter place — from inside to outside, darker to lighter place," recalls Suzuki. "But, you have to change the consumer. The people who play games in dark places will always play games in dark places. So we had to attract people who would play games in bright places."
In other words, he wanted to create a new market. During the 1980s, Japanese arcades exploded thanks to Suzuki games like Hang-On and Space Harrier. Likewise, Miyamoto worked (and continues to work) at expanding the gaming audience.
"The difference between Miyamoto-san and I is that he takes the same game and takes it deeper and deeper, like with the Mario series, while I like to work on different games and concepts," says Suzuki. "I don't like doing the same thing."
With games ranging from shooting to driving to flying to action titles, Suzuki's resume is proof of that.
The Disappearance of Yu Suzuki [1UP] [Pic]