Yoshimi Yasuda Interview: Tecmo's President Speaks Out
by Jeff Cork
POSTED: 5/21/2007 3:45 PM
uring the Tecmo’s Nite Out event, we were fortunate enough to get to chat with Yoshimi Yasuda, the company’s CEO and president. During our conversation, he spoke about the mission he was giving the newly formed Team Tachyon, the challenges of bringing older games to new hardware and, of course, Tecmo Bowl.
Game Informer: Could you please introduce yourself and give a little background on your history with Tecmo?
Yoshimi Yasuda: My name is Yoshimi Yasuda. I am CEO and president of Tecmo Ltd. My history with Tecmo is actually three years—you may be surprised, but I was an investment banker before that. Three years ago, when I joined the company, I was the producer for Monster Hunter 5 and then was also in charge of the online and local departments. I have been holding this title since January ‘06.
GI: You made the Team Tachyon announcement this evening. Can you talk a little bit about Team Tachyon? Is there anything beyond what was said in the announcement that you’d like to share?
Yasuda: There are certainly little things here and there that I can add to what was said on stage. I’ve already given them a mission, and this is a mission that I’m going to work with them together on. It’s part of my own team, too. And that mission is to develop, create and produce high-end, high-quality entertainment and titles. But at the same time, while trying to achieve that goal, I’d like to see them come up with some creative ideas for casual entertainment as well.
GI: In the announcement, it was said Team Tachyon will be working with new and traditional games series. Can you elaborate on the traditional-games aspect?
Yasuda: I think the highlight for traditional is Tecmo Bowl.
GI: What inspired bringing Tecmo Bowl back? As the commercial demonstrated, it has a cult following that’s almost synonymous with people playing it in dorm rooms, even after all these years.
Yasuda: Actually, I guess the trigger point has always existed. It existed before I became president of Tecmo. Every time someone from our company had an opportunity to talk to or meet a media person or journalist from overseas, they were like, “We love Tecmo Bowl!” Actually, it wasn’t DOA or Ninja Gaiden—everyone would be praising Tecmo Bowl left and right. I think the challenge was that everyone has this image already in their head of what Tecmo Bowl is, so it’s not as easy as you think to just say, “OK, then we’ll make Tecmo Bowl for this platform or for that platform.” Knowing that people already have this image, we’re pushing ourselves to reintroduce Tecmo Bowl as it is for today. What can we do with Tecmo Bowl to make it enjoyable and entertaining for our users today.
GI: EA has been dominating the football landscape for some time now, and 2K Sports is making a comeback. What does Tecmo plan on offering people with Tecmo Bowl, other than nostalgia?
Yasuda: We can categorize these realistic football games or licensed football titles as real simulation, action-sports games. In that sense, I don’t think we’re trying to really compete to be in the same genre or same level of realism. Tecmo Bowl is everyone’s favorite because it’s Tecmo Bowl. There’s still that entertainment factor that made it so special. It’s going to be our goal to keep those fun parts and enjoyable parts and entertaining parts that make it Tecmo Bowl, but using today’s systems and adding what we can offer from coming up with new ideas and implementing what the new systems can do to enhance the entertainment value.
GI: I’m assuming that Tecmo Bowl is going to adopt a 3D presentation. As with Rygar, is it a challenge transferring classic 2D gameplay to 3D?
Yasuda: I can’t go into the details of, “Now we live in a 3D world, so it’s simply going to go from 2D to 3D,” but Rygar in that sense was bringing that franchise over to a current generation, which is going to be a constant and continuous mission for all game developers—to bring something to the next level in terms of dimensions and quality and realism. With Tecmo Bowl, it’s not just a simple transition of, “Well, before we were in 2D, so let’s bring it into 3D.” There’s going to be a lot more depth into bringing that entertainment value of Tecmo Bowl into the current system.
GI: Rygar is perhaps a little more obscure than Tecmo Bowl was—why revisit that franchise now rather than create something entirely new?
Yasuda: Rygar was originally an arcade game and then it came to the Famicom. Then, a couple of years ago, we released it on the PS2. It’s not just that we’re simply bringing Rygar back because we have the new consoles that the industry offers, but we saw the click between the control using the Wii remote, and our developers saw something the Wii offers—the connection between, “OK, we can make this Rygar into a new title using these aspects of this system.” So it was more of a match that the developers saw that this was going to be possible. It’s not just simply because everyone is remaking different titles, but we saw that was an advantage—there was something that we could use on the Wii that we could apply to Rygar.
GI: Why the secrecy about what platform Tecmo Bowl is going to be on?
Yasuda: The reason why we’re keeping it a secret is also a secret [laughs].
GI: Will Tecmo Bowl take full advantage of the Wii’s remote?
Yasuda: You’re going to have to wait patiently.
P.S. Tecmo bowl back in the NES days was the shit go Bo Jackson! Throwing bows like Quintin Rampage Jackson.
by Jeff Cork
POSTED: 5/21/2007 3:45 PM
uring the Tecmo’s Nite Out event, we were fortunate enough to get to chat with Yoshimi Yasuda, the company’s CEO and president. During our conversation, he spoke about the mission he was giving the newly formed Team Tachyon, the challenges of bringing older games to new hardware and, of course, Tecmo Bowl.
Game Informer: Could you please introduce yourself and give a little background on your history with Tecmo?
Yoshimi Yasuda: My name is Yoshimi Yasuda. I am CEO and president of Tecmo Ltd. My history with Tecmo is actually three years—you may be surprised, but I was an investment banker before that. Three years ago, when I joined the company, I was the producer for Monster Hunter 5 and then was also in charge of the online and local departments. I have been holding this title since January ‘06.
GI: You made the Team Tachyon announcement this evening. Can you talk a little bit about Team Tachyon? Is there anything beyond what was said in the announcement that you’d like to share?
Yasuda: There are certainly little things here and there that I can add to what was said on stage. I’ve already given them a mission, and this is a mission that I’m going to work with them together on. It’s part of my own team, too. And that mission is to develop, create and produce high-end, high-quality entertainment and titles. But at the same time, while trying to achieve that goal, I’d like to see them come up with some creative ideas for casual entertainment as well.
GI: In the announcement, it was said Team Tachyon will be working with new and traditional games series. Can you elaborate on the traditional-games aspect?
Yasuda: I think the highlight for traditional is Tecmo Bowl.
GI: What inspired bringing Tecmo Bowl back? As the commercial demonstrated, it has a cult following that’s almost synonymous with people playing it in dorm rooms, even after all these years.
Yasuda: Actually, I guess the trigger point has always existed. It existed before I became president of Tecmo. Every time someone from our company had an opportunity to talk to or meet a media person or journalist from overseas, they were like, “We love Tecmo Bowl!” Actually, it wasn’t DOA or Ninja Gaiden—everyone would be praising Tecmo Bowl left and right. I think the challenge was that everyone has this image already in their head of what Tecmo Bowl is, so it’s not as easy as you think to just say, “OK, then we’ll make Tecmo Bowl for this platform or for that platform.” Knowing that people already have this image, we’re pushing ourselves to reintroduce Tecmo Bowl as it is for today. What can we do with Tecmo Bowl to make it enjoyable and entertaining for our users today.
GI: EA has been dominating the football landscape for some time now, and 2K Sports is making a comeback. What does Tecmo plan on offering people with Tecmo Bowl, other than nostalgia?
Yasuda: We can categorize these realistic football games or licensed football titles as real simulation, action-sports games. In that sense, I don’t think we’re trying to really compete to be in the same genre or same level of realism. Tecmo Bowl is everyone’s favorite because it’s Tecmo Bowl. There’s still that entertainment factor that made it so special. It’s going to be our goal to keep those fun parts and enjoyable parts and entertaining parts that make it Tecmo Bowl, but using today’s systems and adding what we can offer from coming up with new ideas and implementing what the new systems can do to enhance the entertainment value.
GI: I’m assuming that Tecmo Bowl is going to adopt a 3D presentation. As with Rygar, is it a challenge transferring classic 2D gameplay to 3D?
Yasuda: I can’t go into the details of, “Now we live in a 3D world, so it’s simply going to go from 2D to 3D,” but Rygar in that sense was bringing that franchise over to a current generation, which is going to be a constant and continuous mission for all game developers—to bring something to the next level in terms of dimensions and quality and realism. With Tecmo Bowl, it’s not just a simple transition of, “Well, before we were in 2D, so let’s bring it into 3D.” There’s going to be a lot more depth into bringing that entertainment value of Tecmo Bowl into the current system.
GI: Rygar is perhaps a little more obscure than Tecmo Bowl was—why revisit that franchise now rather than create something entirely new?
Yasuda: Rygar was originally an arcade game and then it came to the Famicom. Then, a couple of years ago, we released it on the PS2. It’s not just that we’re simply bringing Rygar back because we have the new consoles that the industry offers, but we saw the click between the control using the Wii remote, and our developers saw something the Wii offers—the connection between, “OK, we can make this Rygar into a new title using these aspects of this system.” So it was more of a match that the developers saw that this was going to be possible. It’s not just simply because everyone is remaking different titles, but we saw that was an advantage—there was something that we could use on the Wii that we could apply to Rygar.
GI: Why the secrecy about what platform Tecmo Bowl is going to be on?
Yasuda: The reason why we’re keeping it a secret is also a secret [laughs].
GI: Will Tecmo Bowl take full advantage of the Wii’s remote?
Yasuda: You’re going to have to wait patiently.
P.S. Tecmo bowl back in the NES days was the shit go Bo Jackson! Throwing bows like Quintin Rampage Jackson.