One of the most influential creators in modern entertainment would rather ride a real roller coaster than play the games he built. This deep dive draws on translated Sega developer interviews, arcade cabinet blueprints, and gaming retrospectives to chronicle Yu Suzuki, who led Sega's AM2 division for 18 years and pushed the industry into the third dimension by sheer force of will.

We follow him from a 1983 undergraduate thesis on 3D graphics and a first-year hit with Champion Boxing, through the taikan body sensation era of Hang-On, Space Harrier, Out Run, and the gyroscopic R360, to true polygonal 3D with Virtua Racing in 1992 and Virtua Fighter in 1993, the game that convinced Sony to rebuild the PlayStation around 3D. We cover how he compressed Lockheed Martin military texture mapping onto a $50 chip, brought motion capture from medical  ...