Need some help/advice - Japanese Software Devs

[VivaAmiga]

Hey all....

Not sure if this is the right section. Probably not! But I really need some thoughtful advice here.

Zach from the Amiga documentary here (www.amigafilm.com). Gonna try and get some interviews shot at E3 this year, and my partner needs to know if anyone knows of any Japanese game developers who can speak to the Amiga in some way....whether as a fond rememberance or perhaps they even created software FOR or WITH the Amiga back in the day?

Any advice? Would love some pointers. Odd request I know!

vivaamiga@gmail.com

[Matt_H]

I don't think there was much Amiga software development done in Japan, so you may have trouble with this.

That being said, I remember seeing somewhere ages ago that (some?) Genesis/MegaDrive dev kits were based around Amigas. So maybe if you can find some former Sega developers...

[djnick]

This might sound interesting: " Interview with Susumu Hirasawa (Japanese Musician)":

Do a Google search, Amiga Japanese Musician, I am typing from phone now, no multitasking...

[MaximvsPayne]

http://cfc.amiga.co.jp/
http://hub.webring.org/hub/amigajapan
http://www.magazines.ch/amigamagsother.html#Amigajapan
dmaster@cfcj.com
http://www.amigahistory.co.uk/japan.txt

[OSS542]

In the field of artificial life,  one of the classic tools is a system called Tierra, which was originally created by Dr Thomas Ray.  Information on it can be found at the following:

main home page: http://life.ou.edu/tierra/
wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tierra_%28computer_simulation%29

One of the first ports of Tierra ever done from SunOS was done for the Amiga.  Much of the work for the network version was done in Japan at the ATR/HIP Labs (HIP has since closed) in Kyoto using the Amiga in addition to the Sun workstations of the time.  A page on the Amiga port can be found on Aminet at :

http://aminet.net/package/misc/sci/tierraAmiga

There is a great deal of literature on the Tierra system available.

media coverage
world         : http://life.ou.edu/pubs/news/
United States : http://life.ou.edu/pubs/news/node1.html
Japan         : http://life.ou.edu/pubs/news/node4.html

There is a chapter on Tierra on the book "Artificial Life" by Steven Levy, who also wrote "Hackers"

There is a NY Times article from November 25, 1997 on the first page of the science section which discusses an incident involving the Amiga developer who went on to do a great deal of development on the network version of Tierra as well as on advanced versions of its analysis tools

[moogaloonie]

After like 14 years visiting I am now a member!  Woo-hoo!

I wanted to point out that there is a Japanese developed shooter for Amiga called "Gony Shoot".  It was made by Yasuaki Gohko and released on the Aminet in 1997.  As a fan of Japanese style games, I contacted him to offer any help with artwork, translation, whatever.  He politely responded that there were very few Amiga users in Japan and he didn't seem to think he would continue Amiga development for that reason. I suppose he didn't consider being popular outside of Japan a consolation for his countrymen being unable to appreciate his efforts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBgm-jljEtw

The video goes out of A/V sync, not a problem with the actual game IIRC.

[HenryCase]

Hey all....

Not sure if this is the right section. Probably not! But I really need some thoughtful advice here.

Zach from the Amiga documentary here (www.amigafilm.com). Gonna try and get some interviews shot at E3 this year, and my partner needs to know if anyone knows of any Japanese game developers who can speak to the Amiga in some way....whether as a fond rememberance or perhaps they even created software FOR or WITH the Amiga back in the day?

Any advice? Would love some pointers. Odd request I know!

vivaamiga@gmail.com

From what I've heard the Amiga wasn't that big in Japan. However, when reading what you wrote, one developer instantly sprang to mind; the director behind Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, Fumito Ueda:
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Fumito_Ueda

This text is taken from his Wikipedia page:

Among other tools, Ueda was an owner of the Commodore Amiga computers (A500 first then A4000). This is uncommon in Japan where this range of computers was not very popular. During these years he learned to use Newtek Lightwave, and eventually the first mock-ups and testbeds for Ico were created with Lightwave 3D. The main inspiration for Ico came from Eric Chahi's Amiga classic Another World, which was called Outer World in Japan.

Fumito Ueda might be at the latest E3 promoting The Last Guardian:
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/The_Last_Guardian

Hope this helps.