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)
Rez is considered to be one of the most immersive games of all time. 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-present)

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 two
Meteos DS releases, Q Entertainment released
Lumines Live! for the
Xbox 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.
Mizuguchi giving a demo of Child of Eden at E3 2010. 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 the
E3 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.
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
Tetsuya Mizuguchi. Cake. 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.
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