Satō was instrumental in development of all of
Sega
‘s home consoles
Sega
announced on its Japanese X/Twitter account on Monday that Hideki Satō, former president of
Sega
known as the “father of
Sega
hardware,” has died. The Japanese game web magazine
Beep 21
reported on Saturday he died on February 13. He was 75.
Satō was born in November 1950 in Hokkaido, and joined
Sega
in April 1971 as a recent college graduate. He first worked on electro-mechanical games for the company, and then helped develop
Sega
‘s first video game
Pong-Tron
in 1983, along with other early arcade games for
Sega
.
Satō was instrumental to the development of all of
Sega
‘s home gaming consoles, including: SG-1000, SC-3000, Mega Drive (
Sega
Genesis),
Sega
Saturn, and
Sega
Dreamcast.
Sega
then announced its withdrawal from the gaming hardware business in 2001.
Satō served as the president and CEO of
Sega
from 2001 to 2003, after which he became representative director and chairman.
After leaving
Sega
, Satō became the president of Advance Create in 2008, which was an LED lighting and emergency power supply company.
In 2021, he gave an extensive
interview
with
Beep21
on how he joined
Sega
and the history behind the development of
Sega
‘s home consoles.
Sources:
Sega
‘s X/Twitter
account
, Beep21’s X/Twitter
account
,
Oricon
via
Hachima Kikō
