Tetsuya Mizuguchi Interview 2005

We sit down for a comprehensive new interview with one of gaming's most acclaimed developers. Discover more about Mizuguchi's career, Lumines 2, working with Sega again in future, and much more.

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I think people today are thinking with a multi-tasked mind. They talk on the phone, e-mail, watch TV, all at the same time - so they can manage many things. I gave him the concept, and he told me to give him a few days to think of a plan, and then he came back with the Meteos idea, which looked really fun, and it was a great presentation. So we built an early pre-production, and I talked to him about the possibility of working with Bandai, and the project started.

Kikizo: Would you work with him again?

Mizuguchi: I don't have plans right now, but I wouldn't rule it out.

Kikizo: Meteos and Lumines were in development at the same time. Was there any crossover of ideas between the two games? Which of the two titles were you more satisfied with?

Mizuguchi: I got the vague idea for these two games when I was thinking about a simple, all-new game for a brand new platform. The idea for Lumines came from the same line of the concept for music-game relation. With Meteos, on the other hand, I wanted something that is multi-task, so think like Matrix's opening movie, where many blocks keep falling from above. They are both entirely different, and so I like them equally!

Kikizo: Since starting Q Entertainment have your responsibilities and workload increased compared to your time at Sega?

Mizuguchi: I can keep on going by believing in myself, and for that reason I'm very satisfied. It's a very healthy thing. My workload has probably increased, but I don't mind one bit. I'm really enjoying the fact that I'm going forward with our own visions we have.

Kikizo: Between heading the company, doing PR like this interview, directing the games, maintaining relations with financial backers like MS, publishers like Ubisoft, and partners like Phantagram, do you still have time to just relax?

Mizuguchi: Actually, I'm always relaxed. There are people managing, promoting, and developing who are actively involved with everything; I'm not the only one working, we're working as a team.

Sega Rally and Beyond

Kikizo: How do you progress from creating a rather conservative racing game like Sega Rally to designing unusual masterpieces like the UGA output? Was it a conscious decision to develop something different?

Mizuguchi: There was no real progress, I think [laughs]. I have a lot of things that I'd love to create, that I'd love to make. I want to make it with my staff, so at the time, CGI graphics were very hot, and everyone wanted to watch or experience reality in game, and experience the real thing. The racing games were the best form for presenting these graphics to wow them, and to make them say "wow, this is the real experience!" But now with F1 and rally games, we can generate anything we want, with any colours, so it's a little easier to do it now.

That was really exciting, but after that, with the generation of the PS2 and DC, we can manage and engineer better music, so I waited for the right time. I wanted to use music in the game, not only in the game, but to use music elements in such a way that players could interact with the music as part of the game and level design. So, it was all about timing.

We've already done many things as an industry, so the next generation will be high-def visuals and music. So I think the theme is always changing in the industry, but for me, I'm thinking, "how can we get a chemical reaction inside?" With the mixture of visual and sounds, and other inputs like vibrations, how can we get a dramatic reaction from a gamer?

Kikizo: Would you have imagined that Sega Rally would still be this popular more than ten years later? And what do you think about the fact that there's a new part [Sega Rally 2006] in development?

Mizuguchi: I talked to my ex-staff and I told them in a quick conversation "it's your game, not mine!" [laughs]. I said good luck to them with it. I am definitely surprised that the game is still very popular, but it makes me really happy. But that was over ten years ago! We put a lot of energy into that game at the time, and we burned our soul with it! We watched many races, drove real cars, and I think we had a lot of energy at that time, and we put that into the game.

Space Channel 5

Kikizo: How did you manage to persuade Sega to do a sequel for Space Channel 5 when the first game wasn't a massive sales hit?

Mizuguchi: [Laughs] I forgot about how I did it. I honestly don't remember, because it was a really smooth presentation. There wasn't any struggle with the management at Sega. Rez was much tougher to present than Space Channel 5, actually. At the time, many things outside the game industry - like the mobile phones such as Vodafone, which sold 8 million units, had a lot to do with it.

We had Ulala on mobile phones for people to use, and also MTV helped [the decision process]. I think the sales weren't good, but we have many fans of the game, and we had a good atmosphere with the game, so it was easier to make the sequel.

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