Sonic co-creator found guilty of insider trading breaks silence to accuse Square Enix producer of being 'the kind of person who would submit lies to court'
Sonic co-creator Yuji Naka has had something of a varied career since leaving Sega, initially focusing on his own company Prope before teaming up with Square Enix to direct the ill-fated Balan Wonderworld. The latter wasn't a great game, and ever since release Naka and the publisher have been engaged in something of a moral blame game, as well as a wider war of words sparked by an insider trading case brought against Naka and two other Square Enix employees in 2022.
Naka was arrested in November 2022 on suspicion of insider trading while the creator was still at Square Enix, the main accusation being he had bought shares in Aiming Inc knowing that Square Enix planned to collaborate with the studio on mobile game Dragon Quest Tact. A month later Naka was arrested again, this time in relation to a similar situation with studio ATeam and mobile game Final Fantasy 7: The First Soldier.
The father of Sonic came this close to jail time, despite admitting his guilt during his first court appearance in March 2023: «There is no doubt that I knew the facts about the game before it was made public and bought the stock.» In July 2023 he was sentenced to a whopping fine of $1.2 million and a two-and-a-half-year prison sentence, suspended for four years. Naka's «remorse» saved him from chokey, but he has to be on his best behaviour until 2027.
Naka hasn't made any public comments since shortly before his arrest in November 2022, but he's now returned to his old Twitter account purely to take some shots at a Square Enix employee who worked on Balan Wonderworld (thanks, VGC). His return was sparked by reports that Yu Miyake, executive producer on Balan Wonderworld but better-known for his work on the Dragon Quest series, was to be re-assigned at Square Enix.
The most eyebrow-raising element by far is that Naka accuses Miyake lying in his court submissions during Naka's trial.
«It feels like it's finally happening,» said Naka, via machine translation. «I hope he'll be gone soon
Read more on pcgamer.com
