Hideki Sato, father of Sega consoles, dies at 77

Hideki Sato, the engineer behind several of Sega’s most important consoles, has died at 77. Sato began working with Sega in the 1970s, with early credits on the arcade games MonacoGP, Turbo and Star Jacker. He led the engineering teams behind every Sega home console from 1983 to 2001, including the SG-1000, Master System, Mega Drive/Genesis, Saturn and Dreamcast.

After Isao Okawa’s death in 2001, Sato became Sega’s president and managed the company’s difficult transition away from the hardware business. He stepped down in 2003 before Sega’s merger with pachinko manufacturer Sammy, and left the company in 2008. The Dreamcast, Sato’s final design, failed commercially but is remembered for innovations such as the VMU memory-card/display, early online features and a library of cult titles; Phantasy Star Online became the first successful console MMO.

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