Hironobu Sakaguchi

Finally I’m going to write about the Japanese games designer Hironobu Sakaguchi. Sakaguchi is famous around the world for creating the Final Fantasy series. He has had a long gaming career with over 80 million gaming units sold worldwide. After he finished university he became a part-time employee of Square, a brand new company formed of Denyucha Electric Company by Masafumi Miyamoto. Square managed to become an independent company in 1986. After that he managed to become a full-time employee as the Director of Planning and Development. Unfortunately the first games that the company made were highly unsuccessful. Sakaguchi then decided to gamble the rest of Square’s money on one final attempt to make the next game so brilliant that it would save the company; this game is known as Final Fantasy. The game was released for the NES (or Nintendo Entertainment System) in Japan on 18th December 1987. After releasing Final Fantasy, the game became one of the most successful games released and under Sakaguchi’s watch, he decided to create sequels and spin offs of the Final Fantasy series. In 1991, due to the successful release and sales of Final Fantasy IV, he managed to become the Executive Vice President of Square. Followed by Final Fantasy V, he became president at the Square USA Company in 1995. The last Final Fantasy game Sakaguchi created was Final Fantasy IX. He was interviewed during the time and said that this is favourite Final Fantasy game he has created. Sakaguchi has also been known to help create other games such as Kingdom Hearts, Vagrant Story and Parasite Eve.
Sakaguchi was the third person to be included into the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame on April 5th 2000. One of the reasons he attained his Hall of Fame status is because of the incredible amount of games he has sold and created and because he managed to save Square with their last gamble.