Sega announced on its Japanese X/Twitter account on Monday that Hideki Satō, former president of Sega known as the "father of Sega hardware," has died. The Japanese game web magazine Beep 21 reported on Saturday he died on February 13. He was 75.
Satō was born in November 1950 in Hokkaido, and joined Sega in April 1971 as a recent college graduate. He first worked on electro-mechanical games for the company, and then helped develop Sega's first video game Pong-Tron in 1983, along with other early arcade games for Sega.
Satō was instrumental to the development of all of Sega's home gaming consoles, including: SG-1000, SC-3000, Mega Drive (Sega Genesis), Sega Saturn, and Sega Dreamcast. Segathen announced its withdrawal from the gaming hardware business in 2001.
Satō served as the president and CEO of Sega from 2001 to 2003, after which he became representative director and chairman.
After leaving Sega, Satō became the president of Advance Create in 2008, which was an LED lighting and emergency power supply company.
In 2021, he gave an extensive interview with Beep21 on how he joined Sega and the history behind the development of Sega's home consoles.
Sources: Sega's X/Twitter account, Beep21's X/Twitter account, Oricon via Hachima Kikō