Sonic the Hedgehog creator Yuji Naka gets prison sentence, $1.2M fine

Yuji Naka, the Sonic the Hedgehog’s creator, has been sentenced to two years, six months in prison, and fines amounting to $1.2 million for his part in a 2020 insider trading scam.

According to Japanese news agency Jiji Press, Naka’s prison sentence has been suspended for four years, meaning he avoids serving time as long as he adheres to the conditions of his release and doesn’t break the law again during this time. In suspending Naka’s sentence, the judge noted that he had shown remorse for his crime.

Naka was arrested twice on charges of insider trading, the first time in November and again in December. The arrests were unrelated. On Friday, both cases were considered in the sentencing.

According to inside information, Aiming was going to be developing in the early part of 2020. This led them into a first arrest. Dragon Quest TactThe mobile version of the game is called. Square Enix’s project and partnership with Aiming was not public at that time, and Naka was at Square Enix working on the ill-fated platformer Balan Wonderworld.

The second case involved Naka, Taisuke Sasaki, and Square Enix. They were accused of purchasing shares in Ateam which created the mobile game. Final Fantasy 7 – The First Soldier The case again alleges Naka and Sazaki took action before the collaboration became public. The two men were said to have made “hundreds of millions of yen” in the deal ($1 million US converts to more than ¥140 million).

Naka co-created Sega’s mascot, Sonic the Hedgehog, in collaboration with artist Naoto Ohshima in the late in the early 1990s. In 2006, he left Sega and began working independently. He joined Square Enix as of 2018, where he worked with Ohshima again to create the game. Balan Wonderworld.

Naka revealed in an interview with April 20, 2022 that he had been removed from the Balan Wonderworld’s development six months before its 2021 launch and sued Square Enix, though he did not disclose how that case was resolved. Naka left Square Enix two months after Balan Wonderworld launched.