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Hideki Sato, the designer of most Sega home consoles, has allegedly died.
As announced by Sega history zine Beep21, Sato – known as the “father of Sega hardware” – reportedly died on Thursday, 13th February. He was in his late seventies (some sources put him at 77, others 75).
“Known as the Father of Sega Hardware, Mr. Hideki Sato passed away yesterday,” Beep21 announced, as translated via machine. “He was truly a great figure who shaped Japanese gaming history and captivated Sega fans all around the world.
“The excitement and pioneering spirit of that era will remain forever in the hearts and memories of countless fans, for all eternity. Rest in peace.”
Sato joined Sega in 1971, led the research and development department in the early 1990s, and served briefly as president at Sega in the early 2000s. He and his team developed most of its hardware systems from the SG-1000 to the Dreamcast, including its arcade machines, until he left the company in 2008.
“[Our home consoles] sold so well, we started to get stars in our eyes, thinking we might sell half a million!” Sato said, recounting his time at Sega with Famitsu, and archived at shmplations. “It was a scale completely incomparable with our arcade board sales. And that is how our entire company caught Console Fever, and threw ourselves into that side of game development.
“We had a feeling that before long, consumers would be appreciating video games with the same sense with which they enjoyed music; moreover, since the Megadrive was a machine that you put in front of your TV, our concept was to make it look like an audio player,” he added. “So we painted the body black and put the ’16BIT’ lettering in a gold print. That gold printing, by the way, was very expensive. (laughs) But we really wanted to play up the fact that this was the very first 16-bit home console.”
Beep21 had extensively interviewed Sato about his work at Sega, including as part of this in-depth roundtable series that debuted just a few months ago https://note.com/beep21/m/m15e6fd503a96 🇯🇵 most of their stuff’s paywalled, but this long interview from 2021 is part of their free package 🇯🇵
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— GSK | ALL CITY SLOP SHOP (ETA SOON) (@allcityslopshop.com) February 14, 2026 at 2:08 PM
