Tetsuya Mizuguchi

Though he claims he never had any gaming aspirations before joining Sega in 1990, Mizuguchi has become a notable puzzle and rhythm game developer.

At Sega (1990-2003)

Before leaving Sega in 2003, Tetsuya Mizuguchi held the title of Chief Creative Officer for the company's United Game Artists (UGA) division. Under the leadership of Mizuguchi, such titles as Sega Rally Championship, Space Channel 5 and Rez were developed. In September of 2003, UGA members were transferred into the Sonic Team in order to work on the Sonic Riders series. Due to conflicting interests and Mizuguchi feeling hindered in his vision by Sega (supposedly as a result of the Sega-Sammy merger), he left the company in 2003 and founded Q Entertainment.

Q Entertainment (2003-2014)

Mizuguchi's company came out of the Sega debacle swinging, releasing the popular Lumines for the PSP in 2004. They continued on the handheld market with Meteos for Nintendo DS in 2005. The game spawned a Disney-themed version in 2007.

Between the twoMeteos DS releases, Q Entertainment released Lumines Live! for theXbox Live Arcade and Lumines II for the PSP, both in 2006. The same year, Mizuguchi and his company also worked with the South Korean video game developer Phantagram on the 2006 Xbox 360 title Ninety-Nine Nights. The company went on to release Every Extend Extra in August. Mizuguchi and his company also developed and released Gunpey on the Nintendo DS and the Sony PSP as a tribute to long time Nintendo developer Gunpei Yokoi.

2007 saw Lumines come to the PlayStation 2 in the form of Lumines Plus, a port combining the first two PSP Lumines titles. Lumines saw its first PC release in this year as well. Q Entertainment would visit the home console market as well, releasing Every Extend Extra Extreme, an Xbox Live Arcade update of the PSP game.

The following year, Q Entertainment would release Meteos Wars, an XBLA game based on the original DS title. 2008 also saw Q Entertainment release Rez HD, a high-definition, 5.1 surround sound version of Mizuguchi's classic creation Rez. Lumines Supernova was also released in 2008, a PlayStation Network version of the now-classic puzzle game. Lumines was also released on Steam in this year.

In 2009, Every Extend Extra Extreme, Lumines Live!, and Rez HD would see a release on physical media for Xbox 360 in the form of Qubed. Q Entertainment didn't abandon the digital distribution space that year, though, as Lumines saw an iPhone release for the successful and pervasive franchise (which has seen a release on every modern platform except for Nintendo DS). Q Entertainment also handled the 2009 DS release of Peggle.

At theE3 2010 Ubisoft press conference, Q Entertainment announced Child of Eden, a spiritual successor to Rez. Mizuguchi gave a gameplay demo with Microsoft's Kinect controller. The game will be released for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in Q1 2011.

Enhance Games (2014-present)

In 2014, Mizuguchi started Enhance Games, releasing a VR-version of Rez known as Rez Infinite, and then Tetris Effect.

Music Career

Outside of the games industry, Mizuguchi is also involved with the band Genki Rockets. The music video for their song Heavenly Star (which can be found in Lumines II and No More Heroes) was directed by him, and he also helped produce and write the lyrics for the track.

Trivia

Mizuguchi is one of the few Japanese developers who can speak English fluently. He has made many presentations and given several interviews to the Western media in English.

According to his Twitter feed, he does not like Tom Cruise.