Sega’s legendary developer Yu Suzuki stepped down earlier this month from his position as Sega-Sammy’s Research & Development Chief Officer.

Some of Suzuki’s most famous works may fly over the heads of most current-gen gamers, including arcade shooter, Space Harrier, and the Dreamcast’s financial black hole, Shenmue. However, just about anyone can fondly recognize Suzuki’s work through the highly-successful Virtua Fighter series.

Ever since the disappointment of the never-finished Shenmue game series (which cost over $70 million to produce), Suzuki’s role in the company has fallen deeper into obscurity. Last year, Sega of America’s, Simon Jeffery was quoted believing that Yu Suzuki was no longer with the company at all! Since Shenmue, Suzuki and his AM2 studio have produced a few non-Virtua Fighter games, half of which have unfortunately been canceled.

While Suzuki’s current state is being referred to as “retired”, Sega-Sammy notes that he is actually being moved to their Amusement R&D Division. Does this mean that Suzuki’s returning to his arcade roots? Time will tell.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 16th, 2009 at 9:31 pm and is filed under Games. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.