Hironobu Sakaguchi
Encyclopedia : H : HI : HIR : Hironobu Sakaguchi
Hironobu Sakaguchi (坂口 博信, born 1962) was the Director of Planning and Development for Square Co., Ltd.. He is the creator of the Final Fantasy series. In 1991 he was honored with the position of Executive Vice President followed shortly thereafter by an appointment of President of Square USA, Inc. In 2001, he founded Mistwalker, which began operation three years later.
Sakaguchi co-founded Square with Masafumi Miyamoto in 1983. Their first games were very unsuccessful. He then decided to create his final work in the game industry with the rest of Square's money, hence naming it Final Fantasy. The game became an instant hit, and surprised even himself how well it did, and put off his retirement. He then made sequels of the game. Now there are twelve Final Fantasy games. After the first six games came out, he served more as an executive producer of the series, and as an executive producer of many of Squares other games.
Sakaguchi has had a long career in gaming with over 80 million units of video games sold worldwide. Sakaguchi took the leap from games to film when he took the directorial role in , an animated motion picture based on his world-famous Final Fantasy series. However, the movie was one of the most expensive box office bombs in cinema history, losing over $120 million and leading to the closure of Square Pictures. Sakaguchi was demoted from his post as an executive at Square. This event also reduced Square's financial capital, and eventually led to them merging with rival Enix into Square Enix. Sakaguchi then resigned his position at Square, and founded Mistwalker with the financial backing of Microsoft Game Studios
A long time proponent of bringing together the story-telling vehicle of film and the interactive elements of games, which he has pursued through the Final Fantasy series. The franchise has sold more than 60 million units worldwide and remains popular to this day.
In 2000, Sakaguchi became the third person inducted into the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences' Hall of Fame. In February 2005 it was announced that Sakaguchi's company, Mist Walker, would be working with Microsoft Game Studios to produce three computer role-playing games for the Xbox 360.
Games credited
Hironobu Sakaguchi has been credited, in some capacity, with the following games. This list was taken from [MobyGames.com].
- Cry On
- Lost Odyssey
- Blue Dragon (2006)
- Kingdom Hearts II (2005)
- (2004)
- Final Fantasy Tactics Advance (2003)
- Final Fantasy X-2 (2003)
- Final Fantasy Origins (2002)
- Kingdom Hearts (2002)
- Driving Emotion Type-S (2001)
- Final Fantasy Chronicles (2001)
- Final Fantasy X (2001)
- The Bouncer (2000)
- Final Fantasy IX (2000)
- Vagrant Story (2000)
- Chocobo Racing (1999)
- Chrono Cross (1999)
- Final Fantasy Anthology (1999)
- Final Fantasy VIII (1999)
- Front Mission 3 (1999)
- Parasite Eve II (1999)
- Saga Frontier 2 (1999)
- Brave Fencer Musashi (1998)
- Bushido Blade 2 (1998)
- Chocobo's Mysterious Dungeon 2 (1998)
- Ehrgeiz (1998)
- Parasite Eve (1998)
- Xenogears (1998)
- Bushido Blade (1997)
- Einhänder (1997)
- Final Fantasy Tactics (1997)
- Final Fantasy VII (1997)
- Bahamut Lagoon (1996)
- (1996)
- Tobal No.1 (1996)
- Chrono Trigger (1995)
- Seiken Densetsu 3 (1995)
- Final Fantasy VI (1994)
- Final Fantasy V (1992)
- Final Fantasy IV (1991)
- Final Fantasy III (1990)
- Final Fantasy II (1988)
- Final Fantasy (1987)
- Rad Racer (1987)
External links
- [Hironobu Sakaguchi] profile at MobyGames
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.