This week-end we had the Toulouse Game Show (TGS, see what they did there ?), one of the new major game show in France. This year Michel Ancel (Rayman, Beyond Good & Evil), Katsuiro Harada (Tekken) and Yu Suzuki (Virtua Fighter, Shenmue) were the main guests.

I had the honor to spend time and host the conference of Mr. Suzuki-san. As most of the media coverage will be in French, please let me sum the main tibits of the conference for you:

Hang-On

Yu Suzuki wanted to make an off-road racing game, but for commercial purposes, it was decided later on that it will become an on-road game. They choosed bikes because Mr. Suzuki was used to riding bikes.

Outrun

This game started the legend that Mr. Suzuki is a huge Ferrari fan. That is true, but he pointed out that he loves all cars.

To him, Outrun is not a racing game, but a cruising game. He designed it to make us feel the pleasure of driving a powerfull car with one hand, alongside a pretty girl. That’s why the game is not made of tracks like every other game, and that’s also why you could choose the music on the radio. The ultimate cruising experience. That’s also where the path grid came from. To be able to cruise in different places, like in real life.

Virtua Racing

As Mr. Suzuki was used to driving games, that’s the genre they chose to create their first true 3D arcade game. But he wanted to explore 3D characters and so he made the pit worker animations a test. The test being conclusive, he turned the pit worker experiment into a fighting game…

Virtua Fighter

Mr. Suzuki whent to learn martial arts in China and stopped when reaching Shaolin. He still knows the moves but he is not powerfull.

Shenmue

No news on the Shenmue 3 front. As always, he wants to make it, but it’s just a matter of opportunity.

When asked about Shenmue 1&2 being re-released digitaly on XboxLive, he made an embarrassed smile and asked the audience if it answered the question. Cheers and applause follwed.

About the meaning of the Shenmue word, it means “group of pink flowers on this tree”, and evoques the group of people around this tree. As for why it was used as the title of the game, he replied “You’ll have to play the rest of the story to know”. Laugh and cheers from the audience.

So why did Mr. Suzuki went from Arcade games to RPG ? Sega was looking for a killer app for it’s Dreamcast, and it had to be an adventure game or an RPG. As no one at Sega wanted to do it, he took the challenge and created the story that would become Shenmue.

About the Saturn version, it was only a prototype to test gameplay features, like walking and talking to people, questing, and global balance between all this. Only one village and some caves where made before jumping onto the Dreamcast version.

Psi-Phi

He would love to create an iPad or a Kinect version of it. Yu Suzuki loves Kinect and smartphones.

Yu Suzuki future projects

He loves social networking games, that why he made Shenmue City. With the success of smartphones and tablet, it now easier to reach broader audience. Shenmue City coming in Europe or US is now a possibility. He wants to make it, it’s just a matter of opportunity.

We were teased a new fighting games with animals and monsters. Nothing real was shown, only fun pictures of animal fighting he found on the internet, saying that even if it looked like a joke, it still gives hint to what to expect in his next game.

Last but not least

His favorite game amongst the ones he made is Shenmue.

When asked about his favorite game not made by him, he said that he was playing a lot of simple family games with his wife and daughter. He mentioned Animal Crossing as the game he really liked.

When asked if he had been contacted by Nintendo, he replied (with a smile) that he had already worked for them.

After playing some billiard with him, I can assure you one thing: Yu Suzuki is a semi-god at it. He could definitively develop a pro simulation game…