Yuji Naka (中 裕司, Naka Yūji; born September 17, 1965), sometimes called YU2, is a Japanese former video game designer and programmer. He co-created the Sonic the Hedgehog series and was the president of Sonic Team at Sega until he left in 2006.
Naka joined Sega in 1984 and worked on games such as Girl's Garden (1985) and Phantasy Star II (1989). He was the main programmer for the first Sonic games on the Mega Drive in the early 1990s. These games helped Sega sell more games. After creating Sonic the Hedgehog (1991) in Japan, Naka moved to California to work on Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (1992), Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (1994), and Sonic & Knuckles (1994) with Sega Technical Institute.
Naka returned to Japan to lead development of Sonic Team games, including Nights into Dreams (1996), Burning Rangers (1998), Sonic Adventure (1998), and Phantasy Star Online (2000). After Sega stopped making console games in 2001, Naka stayed as an executive officer and managed the company’s projects for five more years.
In 2006, Naka left Sega and started an independent game company called Prope. He later joined Square Enix to direct the platform game Balan Wonderworld (2021), which brought him back together with Sonic co-creator Naoto Ohshima. Naka said he was no longer involved in the project six months before the game was released, and it did not perform well. He left Square Enix in April 2021. In 2023, Naka was found guilty of insider trading at Square Enix.
Early life
Naka was born on September 17, 1965, in Hirakata, Osaka. He learned to program by copying and fixing video game code from magazines. This experience made him want to study assemblers and practice writing code while he was in school. After finishing school, he chose to stay in Osaka instead of going to university.
Career
Around 1983, Naka noticed that the video game company Sega was looking for programming assistants and applied. After a short interview, he started working for Sega in April 1984. His first task was designing maps and checking floppy disks for the game Lode Runner for the SG-1000; he could not remember if the game was released. His first major project was Girl's Garden (1985), which he and composer Hiroshi Kawaguchi created as part of their training. Their boss was impressed and decided to publish the game, which earned them recognition among their peers and Japanese gamers. Naka felt embarrassed about his code and did not want to release the game. He developed games by going with the flow and did not manage tasks. The pace of game development was one game every one or two months, and he lived at the company; he recalled bragging with Yu Suzuki about who worked more overtime.
During the Master System era, Naka wanted to develop games that could not be made on Nintendo's Famicom. Examples include the 3D dungeons of Phantasy Star and ports of Space Harrier and OutRun, which used powerful arcade hardware. The Mega Drive was introduced suddenly, like the Master System. It was only around the 32X's release in 1994 that Sega gave Naka information about hardware beforehand. Super Thunder Blade was the first game he programmed for the Mega Drive. He requested that sprite-scaling be added to future models of the console, but was told it was not possible at the time. He also requested a 6Mbit cartridge for Phantasy Star II, which was approved. The Mega Drive was Naka's favorite hardware, and he said he could have worked on it forever if the clock speed was increased.
During a visit to the 1988 Amusement Machines Show, Naka was impressed by the ability to move diagonally on slopes in a demonstration of Capcom's game Ghouls 'n Ghosts. He asked his supervisors at Sega to let him port the game to the Mega Drive. Capcom provided him with the source code and ROM data. While developing the port, he experimented with the speed of the main character to understand how it interacted with the environment. He also changed the slopes and created a functioning 360-degree loop. Sprite-scaling was still a technique Naka wanted to improve with a game called Metal Lancer, but it was canceled halfway through development.
Sega's president Hayao Nakayama decided Sega needed a flagship series and mascot to compete with Nintendo's Mario franchise. Of Naka's many ideas, "a game to beat Super Mario" caught a superior's attention. Naka created a prototype platform game featuring a fast-moving character rolling in a ball through a long winding tube. The idea for a hedgehog that could roll into a ball by jumping and attacking enemies came from his high school notebook, and he was unsure whether to use it. This concept was expanded with character design by Naoto Ohshima and level design by Hirokazu Yasuhara. Naka hoped to showcase the Mega Drive's speed through fast gameplay. Part of his approach was based on his experience playing the original Super Mario Bros (1985); he wondered why he could not complete levels faster as he improved. The development took longer than any game Naka worked on before, and he worked only on this game for about a year and a half.
Sonic the Hedgehog was released in 1991 and received acclaim. It greatly increased the popularity of the Sega Genesis in North America and is credited with helping Sega gain 65% of the market share against Nintendo. Naka was dissatisfied at Sega, feeling he received little credit for the success, and quit.
Naka rejoined Sega when he was hired by Mark Cerny to work at Sega Technical Institute (STI) in California, with a higher salary and more creative freedom. At STI, Naka led development on Sonic the Hedgehog 2, released in 1992. It was another major success, but its development faced challenges due to language barriers and cultural differences between Japanese and American developers. Artist Craig Stitt described Naka as "an arrogant pain in the ass" who was not interested in working with Americans. Another artist, Tim Skelly, said Naka would have been happier working with an all-Japanese team. As Naka refused to develop another Sonic game with the American staff, he formed a Japanese-only team at STI and developed Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and Sonic & Knuckles, both released in 1994.
After the release of Sonic & Knuckles, Naka returned to Japan, having been offered a producer role. Managing director Hisashi Suzuki brought in videotapes of Virtua Racing and Virtua Fighter, which impressed Naka and contributed to his return. With Naka's return, Sonic Team was officially formed as a brand and began work on a new intellectual property, Nights into Dreams (1996), for Sega's 32-bit Saturn console. Naka did not want to develop for the 32X and was disappointed that the Saturn was not truly 3D. Observing the development environment, he did not want to make a Sonic game right away and instead created Nights. He persuaded his superiors that Nights would take one year and that he would work on a 3D Sonic in 1997. However, the development took longer than expected. Naka regretted not delivering a Sonic game for the Saturn, as this was often cited as a reason for the console's failure.
Meanwhile, in America, STI worked on Sonic X-treme, a 3D Sonic game. Development was hindered by setbacks, leading to its cancellation in 1996. Reportedly, Naka contributed to the cancellation by refusing to let STI use the Nights game engine and threatening to quit. X-treme developer Chris Senn dismissed the story as speculation but said he understood Naka's interest in maintaining control over Sonic Team technology. Sonic Team was developing its own 3D Sonic game using the Nights engine, which may have motivated Naka's threat. In July 2022, Naka denied involvement with X-treme's use of the Nights engine, saying it would have been useless because Nights was coded in assembly and X-treme was in C. He suggested the developers invented the story to explain their failure to finish X-treme.
While Sonic Adventure was in development for the Saturn, Naka was involved in planning Sega's next console, the Dreamcast, as early as 1996. Sonic Team proposed the name "G-Cube." Naka also suggested a multimedia concept involving talking to a built-in microphone to switch TV channels, a feature later used in the Dreamcast game Seaman.
In 1998, before the Dreamcast's launch, Naka and his team visited Sega of America to tour their development offices and observe work on the game Geist
Insider trading charges
On November 17, 2022, Naka was arrested by the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office and charged with breaking the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act of 2006. The prosecutors said Naka used insider trading by buying 10,000 shares of the company Aiming before its game, Dragon Quest Tact, was made public. Two other former Square Enix employees were also arrested. They are accused of buying 162,000 shares between December 2019 and February 2020 for about 47.2 million yen.
On December 7, Naka was arrested again for buying 144.7 million yen worth of shares in the company ATeam before its game, Final Fantasy VII: The First Soldier, was announced. He was later charged with insider trading by the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office. In March 2023, Naka admitted he was guilty. On June 1, prosecutors asked for a prison sentence of two and a half years and a total fine of 172.5 million yen. On July 7, a Tokyo District Court judge sentenced Naka to two years and six months in prison, but the sentence was suspended for four years. The judge also ordered Naka to give up 171 million yen and pay a fine of two million yen.
For 16 months after the charges, Naka did not make any public statements. In April 2024, he returned to social media to comment on news that Yu Miyake, the executive producer of Dragon Quest, was being moved to Square Enix's mobile division. Naka accused Miyake of lying during the trial. Miyake was listed as an executive officer on the game Balan Wonderworld.
Personal life
Naka is a racer and someone who really likes cars, as he has talked about his Ferrari 360 Spider in several interviews. In November 2004, he took part in the sixth race of the Kumho Tyres Lotus Championship in Tasmania. In April 2022, Naka joined the first race of the Elise Super Tech competition at the Mobility Resort Motegi circuit and finished in seventh place.