Talon87
12-31-2011, 02:45 AM
So, I was watching an episode of Game Center CX (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuM8B32B10I&list=UU8dWyg1v16ML5KjlvDDY18Q) and I learned that a man named Ishikawa Shukuo is the CEO of Bandai-Namco. But that wasn't all I learned. At around the 40-minute mark, I learned that this was the same man who invented this token game (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_S3jG83MzY) found in arcades and children's play centers around the world. So I decided to look into him a little more.
his statement of purpose for Bandai-Namco (http://www.bandainamco.co.jp/en/about/)
Bloomberg Business Week's profile (http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/people/person.asp?personId=8711603) (limited)
Giant Bomb's profile (http://www.giantbomb.com/shukuo-ishikawa/72-94973/) (limited)
It appears that he's only been the CEO since 2010. It also appears that, up until that time, he was still busily working on making games for Namco, including some of the company's most famous properties. These include work on Xenosaga I and III, the original Soul Calibur, and Tales of the Abyss. Quite the repertoire! Now granted -- there's a reason I called him "the Gamemaker CEO" in the title and not "the Gamer CEO" and that's because we have no idea what his involvement was with these projects was. Was he actively involved with game development? Or was he merely the "executive producer" old man who signs off on things? Well, I just looked into it a little more and it seems like, yes in fact, he was an executive producer going as far back as 1997; so yeah, I doubt he had an actual hand in the crafting of these games. (At least, if Namco was anything like Nintendo under Yamauchi Hiroshi ...)
But I gotta say, it's the fact that he's in the inventor of the alligator game which impresses me the most. And to prove beyond any shadow of a doubt that he is the arcade alligator man, here you can see that he shares the international (top link) and US (second link) patents for the croc game. (http://patent.ipexl.com/inventor/Ishikawa_Shukuo_1.html) Pretty crazy. :)
his statement of purpose for Bandai-Namco (http://www.bandainamco.co.jp/en/about/)
Bloomberg Business Week's profile (http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/people/person.asp?personId=8711603) (limited)
Giant Bomb's profile (http://www.giantbomb.com/shukuo-ishikawa/72-94973/) (limited)
It appears that he's only been the CEO since 2010. It also appears that, up until that time, he was still busily working on making games for Namco, including some of the company's most famous properties. These include work on Xenosaga I and III, the original Soul Calibur, and Tales of the Abyss. Quite the repertoire! Now granted -- there's a reason I called him "the Gamemaker CEO" in the title and not "the Gamer CEO" and that's because we have no idea what his involvement was with these projects was. Was he actively involved with game development? Or was he merely the "executive producer" old man who signs off on things? Well, I just looked into it a little more and it seems like, yes in fact, he was an executive producer going as far back as 1997; so yeah, I doubt he had an actual hand in the crafting of these games. (At least, if Namco was anything like Nintendo under Yamauchi Hiroshi ...)
But I gotta say, it's the fact that he's in the inventor of the alligator game which impresses me the most. And to prove beyond any shadow of a doubt that he is the arcade alligator man, here you can see that he shares the international (top link) and US (second link) patents for the croc game. (http://patent.ipexl.com/inventor/Ishikawa_Shukuo_1.html) Pretty crazy. :)