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Post by smith5031 on Feb 15, 2016 20:00:40 GMT
The "Early Arcade Classics" interview lists the interviewee as Toru Iwatani, but includes the game Track & Field from Konami as well as Pole Position, which Iwatani was not a principle developer on (though he may have been in a management position by then and overseen it). Just curious if Iwatani is really the only interview subject and whether there is any good development info on Track & Field and/or Pole Position in the interview.
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Post by blackoak on Feb 17, 2016 2:26:07 GMT
Good question! For Pole Position, it's Shinichiro Okamoto. For Track & Field, they only list "Konami Planning Development Group", so it's an anonymous Konami developer. As for content, all three of the interviews are very short, just a couple paragraphs each. I'm actually planning to translate this as part of another patron's voucher selection this month though, in case you had been thinking about voting on it yourself.
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Post by smith5031 on Feb 24, 2016 15:59:04 GMT
A couple of follow ups. First, I take it the Kazunori Sawano interview you included with this translation was the one currently leading in voting? I want to be sure so I don't vote for it if it's already translated. I also have questions about two more interviews. Does the "Tomohiro Nishikado - Developer Long Interview" only discuss Space Invaders, or is there decent info on any of his earlier games like Speed Race and Interceptor? Also, who is the Watanabe listed in the Sigma Entertainment Corp. interview? Is it actually Katsuki Manabe, the founder of the company? Also, does that interview cover the company's whole history back to its beginnings as a medal game operator in 1971?
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Post by blackoak on Feb 27, 2016 0:30:55 GMT
That's correct--the Kazunori Sawano interview was the one with the lead in voting. A different patron selected some other early arcade stuff with his voucher, so I threw it in there (and being likely to be voted in next month, it made sense).
The Nishikado long interview is from the book "Game Maestro: Vol. 1". It's a very long, very detailed look at Nishikado's career, starting in his childhood, then moving forward to 1969 and his first work at Taito Boeki, both non-game and electromechanical. He does talk a bit about Speed Race and some other games there. Of course, the middle of the interview is dedicated to Space Invaders, and covers much of the ground seen in the other Space Invaders interview at shmuplations. Finally, the end of the interview covers his post-Invaders career, his company Dreams, etc.
The Sigma interview is from the GSLA, and only lists the last name (渡辺) of the interviewee. It says he works in the "Special Machinery Department"... no idea what that refers to. Anyway, it's not a very long interview, and entirely about Sigma's work in console development: mainly the Famicom and Megadrive.
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