Hironobu Sakaguchi

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Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of the Final Fantasy series

Hironobu Sakaguchi (坂口博信, born 1962) was the Director of Planning and Development for Square Co., Ltd.. He is the creator of the Final Fantasy series. In 1991 he was honored with the position of Executive Vice President followed shortly thereafter by an appointment of President of Square USA, Inc. In 2001, he founded Mistwalker, which began operation three years later.

Sakaguchi co-founded Square with Masafumi Miyamoto in 1983. Their first games were very unsuccessful. He then decided to create his final work in the game industry with the rest of Square's money, hence naming it Final Fantasy. The game became an instant hit, and surprised even himself how well it did, and put off his retirement. Final Fantasy developed into a successful franchise under Sakaguchi’s watchful eye, which spans from stand alone stories to spin-offs to direct sequels. His mostly hands-on involvement became a bit more lax following Final Fantasy VI, and he went on to serve more as an executive producer of the series, and as an executive producer of many of Squares other games.

Sakaguchi has had a long career in gaming with over 80 million units of video games sold worldwide. A long time proponent of bringing together the story-telling vehicle of film and the interactive elements of games, Sakaguchi took the leap from games to film when he took the directorial role in Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, an animated motion picture based on his world-famous Final Fantasy series. However, the movie was the second-biggest animated box office bombs in cinema history, losing over $120 million and leading to the closure of Square Pictures. Sakaguchi was demoted from his post as an executive at Square. This event also reduced Square's financial capital, and eventually led to them merging with rival Enix into Square Enix. Sakaguchi then resigned his position at Square, and founded Mistwalker with the financial backing of Microsoft Game Studios

In 2000, Sakaguchi became the third person inducted into the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences' Hall of Fame. In February 2005 it was announced that Sakaguchi's company, Mistwalker, would be working with Microsoft Game Studios to produce two computer role-playing games for the Xbox 360. Still, his company remains independent to console exclusitivity. Apart from Blue Dragon and Lost Oddessy, Sakaguchi is also producing ASH: Archaic Sealed Heat for Nintendo DS in collaboration with Shigeru Miyamoto and has at least 3 more games planned for DS and Nintendo's recently released Wii.