(born March 16, 1970) is a Japanese

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device to gener ...

director, producer, designer and screenwriter. Since 2008, Iizuka has been the vice president of product development for the '' Sonic the Hedgehog'' series at Sega, as well as the head of Sonic Team although he has been working on games in the ''Sonic'' series since 1994.

Early career

His first collaboration with Sega involved working with Sega Technical Institute on '' Sonic the Hedgehog 3'' as a designer. Later, he helped supervise Traveller's Tales with the development of '' Sonic R''. He was also the lead designer for '' Nights into Dreams'', and director for '' Sonic Adventure''.

Sega

In 1999, he and a small part of Sonic Team moved to

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

to establish Sonic Team USA (later renamed Sega Studio USA), in order to gain feedback from the western market. Over in the U.S. his team worked on the international release of '' Sonic Adventure''. Afterward, his team started to develop their own games, where he was the director and lead designer for '' Sonic Adventure 2'', '' Sonic Heroes'', '' Shadow the Hedgehog'', and '' Nights: Journey of Dreams''. In an effort to further broaden Sonic's appeal to western markets, Iizuka gave western developer, Backbone Entertainment, a shot at developing Sonic titles (''

Sonic Rivals ''Sonic Rivals'' is a 2006 action-racing video game developed by Backbone Entertainment and Sega Studio USA, and published by Sega for the PlayStation Portable (PSP); it is a game in the ''Sonic the Hedgehog'' series, and follows the heroes needin ...

'' & ''

Sonic Rivals 2 ''Sonic Rivals 2'' is a 2007 racing video game, the sequel to the 2006 game '' Sonic Rivals''. The game was developed by Backbone Entertainment and supervised by Sega Studio USA, for the PlayStation Portable handheld video game console. ''Sonic Ri ...

'') under his team's supervision for the PlayStation Portable console. In 2008, Sega's American division, Sega Studio USA, was absorbed back into Sonic Team Japan, making Iizuka the producer for the ''Sonic'' series at Sonic Team and the head of the company as well. In 2016, Iizuka relocated to Los Angeles to become the VP of Product Development at Sega of America, while retaining his title as the head of Sonic Team. In 2022, it was revealed that Iizuka designed a game named ''Devil & Pii'' for the Sega Genesis in 1992, but it was never released. It would finally be released on October 27, 2022 for the

Sega Genesis Mini 2 The Sega Genesis Mini, known as the Mega Drive Mini in regions outside of North America, is a dedicated console modeled on the Sega Genesis. The Mini emulates the original console's 16-bit hardware, and includes 42 games ported by M2. It was r ...

, however.

Legacy

Game journalist from '' Wired'' described Takashi Iizuka as a difficult man to read, as he tends to slip into corporate speak especially when discussing mixed reception of ''Sonic'' games. His long time colleague and composer, Tomoko Sasaki, however described him as someone who "offered a different and fresh, almost unpredictable, way of thinking" and got along well with him from the very start.

Works

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Iizuka, Takashi Living people Japanese video game designers 1970 births Sega people Japanese video game producers Japanese video game directors People from Kawaguchi, Saitama