(born February 26, 1964) is a Japanese artist and video game designer, best known for designing
Sonic the Hedgehog and
Dr. Eggman characters from
Sega's ''
Sonic the Hedgehog'' franchise.
Although
Yuji Naka
, credited in some games as YU2, is a Japanese video game programmer, designer and producer. He is the former head of the Sega studio Sonic Team, where he was the lead programmer of the original '' Sonic the Hedgehog'' series on the Sega Mega ...
created the original tech demo around which ''Sonic'' gameplay was based, the character in his prototype was a ball that lacked any specific features.
Sonic Team
is a video game developer owned by the Japanese video game company Sega as part of its Sega CS Research and Development No. 2 division. Sonic Team is best known for the long-running ''Sonic the Hedgehog'' series and games such as '' Nights int ...
considered numerous potential animal mascots before deciding on Ohshima's design, with an armadillo or hedgehog being the top choices because their spikes worked well with the concept of rolling into enemies.
After leaving Sonic Team, Ohshima formed an independent game company called
Artoon
Artoon Co., Ltd. (株式会社アートゥーン Kabushiki-Gaisha Ātūn) was a Japanese video game developer established in 1999. It became a subsidiary of AQ Interactive in May 2004 and became a wholly owned subsidiary in June 2005. The team w ...
. There he went on to work on such games ''as
Pinobee'' and ''
Blinx: The Time Sweeper'', and in 2004, the sequel to ''Blinx'', ''
Blinx 2: Masters of Time & Space''. In 2010, Artoon was absorbed into
AQ Interactive
AQ Interactive, Inc. was a Japanese video game developer and publisher. AQ stands for Artistic Quality. It was the parent company of the developers Artoon, Cavia and feelplus, and most recently the U.S. publisher Xseed Games. AQ Interactive ...
. That same year, he and other key members of Artoon left to form
Arzest
Arzest Corporation (Japanese: アーゼスト, Hepburn: Āzesuto) is a Japanese video game development company that develops games for video game consoles. It was formed on June 25, 2010 by key members of Artoon, which was also founded by Execu ...
. Early in his career, he was credited under the nickname "Big Island" in a number of games, which is a literal translation of his
family name.
Works
References
Further reading
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External links
Sega Stars: Naoto Ohshima
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ohshima, Naoto
1964 births
Japanese video game designers
Japanese video game directors
Living people
Sega people
Video game artists