The challenge I was set was to figure out how to turn this into a game. The initial concept proposed using a 'torsion bar'; technology which would have rotated and provided resistance.
By tilting the cabinet, players control the on-screen rider. This marked the birth of the world's first full-body immersive experience in a game.
Just two years after joining Sega Enterprises, how did Yu Suzuki come up with the idea for "Hang On" and make it a reality?
The development code for Hang-On was 'H.O.'
We refer to games in development by their codename, not by their product name. This is to prevent those outside of the company from establishing what we're working on.
When asked, "What is 'HO'?", I'd say, "These are Hiromi Oka's initials..." [a real Japanese basketball player but also a fictional character from a manga]
"What, the one from 'Aim for the Ace!'?" [the manga about a professional tennis player]
"Yeah, that's about it!"
And if I was asked, "Is it a tennis game?"
I'd try to evade the question by replying, "Hey, no more information than that..."
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Major events in 1985
- In March, the Science Expo 'Tsukuba 85' was held.
- In August, 520 people are killed in the Japan Airlines jumbo jet crash.
- The Hanshin Tigers win the Central League for the first time in two years and become Japan's first champions, sparking a "tiger fever" in the Kansai region.
- In the world of J-Pop, Onyanko Club become a social phenomenon.
When a thick, springy, metal rod is twisted in one direction, it tends to return to its original orientation. We wondered if we could use this repulsive force.
However, during prototype testing, we found that it was difficult to maintain the angle of the bike with a torsion bar. Furthermore, I intuitively felt that it would be impossible to use a torsion bar in this game. In other words, the project began by rejecting the concept that was the starting point.
You might think that this decision was presumptuous, coming from a rookie who'd only been with the company for two years. But the reason I intuitively knew that torsion bars couldn't be used was because I used to ride motorbikes.
The term 'hang-on' refers to the posture a rider assumes when taking a corner at high speed on a bike. You lower your upper body as if hanging onto the handlebars, and spread your legs wide enough that your knees touch the ground on the inside of the corner. That's the hang-on posture.
A motorcycle cannot corner well unless it can support the rider leaning at the correct angle, to suit both the curvature of the corner and the speed at which it was taken. However, it was difficult to recreate this with a torsion bar. The movement of the torsion bar is sensitive and has a tendency to bounce back, causing ongoing vibration. It was difficult to lean and angle the bike consistently, which meant the experience and feel of riding a motorbike was lost.
My first proposal was to install a gyroscope inside the cabinet. On a real bike, when you open the throttle, the body of the bike will rise up. I wanted to control the gyro through the game's throttle, so that the cabinet would lean like a real bike. In other words, it was an application of the "Chikyu Goma."
However, cost considerations made this idea unrealistic. Games for amusement centers have various constraints. Safety is of course paramount, but size and cost are also important. In the end, we settled on the idea of using human power to move the cabinet for Hang-On.
Hang-On, the world's first immersive game, was made possible only by Yu Suzuki, who rides motorcycles himself and knows all about the joys of riding them.
But the game isn't just a simulation of the feeling of riding a motorcycle; it allows you to do things that weren't possible on road bikes at the time. And for Suzuki, it's a tribute to the great Grand Prix rider Freddie Spencer.
Hang-On intentionally changes the way bikes behave compared to real road bikes. The game allows you to control the bike's drift, which was impossible with road bikes at the time.
On-road motorbikes can experience a phenomenon known as 'high siding'. When riding at high speeds that exceed the tires capabilities, they can lose grip. The rider then releases the throttle to regain control. However, the shock of regaining grip causes the motorcycle to lose balance and the rider is thrown over the handlebars.
On an off-road bike, the tires don't grip the ground perfectly, so high siding is rare. Even if the tires start to slip, you can control the bike by working the throttle and shifting your center of gravity. For me, the pleasure of riding an off-road bike, using your whole body's sense of balance to ride through the centrifugal force and speed, is something I really enjoy.
I wanted to bring that indescribable feeling of fun to life with Hang-On.
However, Hang-On is a game that simulates on-road motorcycles, not off-road motorcycles. This is because I was a big fan of Freddie Spencer, who was active in the GP500, and I had the deepest respect for him. Spencer was a star. He was bigger than anyone.
If we tried to simulate on-road behavior as closely as possible, it would be too difficult to play as a game and not much fun. So we decided to avoid high-siding.
Instead, Hang-On allows you to control the feeling of riding with half grip, or drifting.
With on-road racing, the only sensible option is the GP500. This style of racing does not involve drifting, but we said, 'Let’s make it possible!'
So, without hesitation, we settled on the GP500 concept for the game bringing the fun of off-road riding to road bikes! It's also the best part of the game.
The time has come when lifts will be possible for real on-road bikes as well.
Later, in 1993, Shoichiro Irimajiri [former Honda engine developer] became vice president of Sega Enterprises. I was excited and exchanged words with Irimajiri-san.
"He's from Honda. He's been racing for a long time. I'd love to hear his story."
Before long, we started calling each other "Iri-san" and "Yutaka."
"You're Suzuki Yu, the creator of Hang-On. You created a really fun game!"
"Yes. I was obsessed with Freddie Spencer. That game was a gift to Spencer.
"Spencer? I was the one who invited him to Japan!"
After that, we had a great time talking about Spencer's memories. Iri said that Hang-On was a simulation of how motorbikes were set to evolve.
"Hang-On allows you to enter a corner while braking. If you had tried that with a bike of the era, you'd fly right off! What's more, in Hang-On, once the tires start to slip, you can use the throttle to control the corner. That's possible with today's road bikes, but when Yu developed the game, it was a technique that no one could pull off, except Spencer. Why did Yu do that? How did he have such a deep understanding of the future of bikes?
Before long, we started calling each other "Iri-san" and "Yutaka."
"You're Suzuki Yu, the creator of Hang-On. You created a really fun game!"
"Yes. I was obsessed with Freddie Spencer. That game was a gift to Spencer.
"Spencer? I was the one who invited him to Japan!"
After that, we had a great time talking about Spencer's memories. Iri said that Hang-On was a simulation of how motorbikes were set to evolve.
"Hang-On allows you to enter a corner while braking. If you had tried that with a bike of the era, you'd fly right off! What's more, in Hang-On, once the tires start to slip, you can use the throttle to control the corner. That's possible with today's road bikes, but when Yu developed the game, it was a technique that no one could pull off, except Spencer. Why did Yu do that? How did he have such a deep understanding of the future of bikes?
I asked Iri why it wasn't possible to drift on road bikes at the time. He explained,
"Old bikes had weak frames. They couldn't withstand the G-forces and would twist. When they twisted, a force was applied in the opposite direction, causing the vibrations to continue. This caused a high side."
It's the same concept as the torsion bar. Honda's engineers knew that if they could control drifting on road bikes, it would be an advantage in racing. They searched for a way to make it possible. The solution to that problem was to increase the strength of the frame.
"But increasing the frame strength by 30% or 50%, didn't help. Even doubling or tripling it didn't solve the problem! I finally gave up, wondering if increasing the frame strength was doable. Then one day a guy brought in a bike with a steel frame. I saw him race on the circuit. With this bike, he was able to control the throttle even when he started drifting. He was even able to enter corners while braking. It proved that if you have a strong frame, you can control the bike after all."
How strong should the frame be? Iri and his team arrived at an incredible figure of 20 times stronger than conventional frames.
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During development, I was serious about putting a real engine in the cabinet, but people around me thought that was a stupid thing to suggest.
There are many things that make a bike so appealing. The speed at which it travels. The exhilaration of controlling the machine. The wind against your cheeks. The vibrations transmitted through the seat and handlebars. And the sound of the engine. We wanted to recreate all of that.
However, I just couldn't get the engine noise to sound realistic. So, rather than spending extra money, I thought it would be quicker to simply use a real engine, even if it was only 50cc. But then, how would I deal with the exhaust fumes? I seriously considered using a duct to vent them out of the amusement facility!
Additionally, I wanted to install a 40cm low-frequency sub-woofer in the tire area.
Furthermore, we wanted the sound to be loudest for the player, not those around them. We seriously contemplated how to achieve this. We even tried installing a duct and motor next to the monitor to blow air onto the player's face!
In the end, due to cost and other issues, we were only able to achieve a small part of what we had hoped to do.
Sound effects are one of the most important parts of a game, as they provide the player with a sense of realism. Up until then, game sounds had consisted of sound effects rather than music, which I was not happy with.
Why do games only have sounds like 'beep' or 'bloop'? Are beeps the main sound? There are various issues, such as sample data size and sound chip limitations, but we have synthesizers and should be able to generate a richer variety of sounds. I knew it was possible with today's chips. It's just that no one had done it yet, or so I thought.
I think Hang-On was probably the first arcade game to have an entire song with proper music.
One game that Suzuki later created was F355 Challenge. This game faithfully reproduces the driving style of the Ferrari F355, and was of such high quality that Ferrari was the first to license it. It was so well-made that it was said that professional racing drivers would play it during the off-season to study the tracks.
So you could say that a good game is a good simulator. Is that really true?
There are very few complete simulators in the gaming world. I think F355 Challenge is the only one that can be called a true simulator.
What I wanted to achieve, for example, was to compare the performance of a professional racer with a boy who loves video games in the same environment.
You can't recreate G-Forces in a simulator, even if you get the braking zones spot on. But you can supplement that missing information with visual cues - for example the car nose-diving on screen - to ensure the game works as an accurate simulation.
Many think it's enough for a simulation game to partially represent the real thing, but that's not the case. The parts that cannot be represented 1:1, must be accounted for. And simulations must also pursue the fun of the experience itself.
If you were to ask me which is the most fun, racing a real Ferrari or playing F355 Challenge, I would answer without doubt - the Ferrari. Even if you want to make a game more enjoyable than a real car, you can't do that with a simulation. A simulation is an imitation of a real experience. It may come close to the real thing, but it will never surpass it.
With a simulation, a professional racer will get better results when playing. With games other than F355 Challenge, no matter how well they advertise themselves as simulations, a boy who is used to playing games will achiever a higher score.
But with F355 Challenge, if a gamer practices 50 times and Schumacher practices 50 times, Schumacher will always be faster. This game has finally made my dream come true.
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Arcade games and consumer games are on completely different levels.
Will there be more convergence between the two?
At the time we developed Hang-On, amusement facilities had just started to be called game centers. To be honest, they didn't have a very good image in society. They were somehow thought of as hangouts for undesirables, and indeed there was that aspect to them. Everyone wanted to change that image. We wanted to create a brighter space where women would feel comfortable visiting alone. We also wanted to create a space where parents wouldn't scold or worry if their children said, 'I want to go to the game center!'
To do that, I thought, 'I have no choice but to change the style of my games.'
When I make arcade games, I think, 'Let's create something that can never be expressed on a consumer device.' I believe that this is the added value of arcade games, and I have always tried to create something that consumer devices could never imitate. However, when porting arcade games to consumer devices, I make them with the mindset, 'The experience may differ but I'll faithfully reproduce the quality of the arcade version.'
The reason I was making games exclusively for arcades in the 1980s was because there was a huge difference in performance between commercial and home machines at the time.
If you create a game with the expectation that it will be converted to low-end hardware, you won't be able to take on new challenges.
I think that was basically the right way to think about it, but that way of thinking no longer applies because the performance of consumer devices has improved dramatically.
Of course, there are differences between arcade and consumer games, such as the lack of game time restrictions and the change in memory media to large-capacity CDs and DVDs. However, the essence of both arcade and consumer games is the same. The only difference between the two is input and output.
The input device for arcade games is located on the panel of the cabinet. On home consoles, it is equivalent to a gamepad. There are many different types of input devices, including various sensors, but the fact that these inputs send signals to the heart of the computer to do something is the same for both arcade and home console games.
In the case of Hang-On, a sensor on the bike's cabinet detects the angle at which the player is leaning, and sends a signal in. The output device refers to the motor, hydraulic drive unit, or the cabinet itself.
The core of my work is what's between these input and output devices, and no matter what's connected to either side, it's essentially the same.
Rather than the difference between arcade and consumer games, the bigger difference is the difference between RPGs and driving games, and between puzzle games and shooting games.
For us developers, it's much more important to consider how to adapt the concept to suit the type of game.
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The overnight success of Hang-On made Yu Suzuki's name well-known in the gaming world almost immediately.
What kind of changes did this bring at the time?
After Hang-On came out, a company tried to poach me. In order to complete Hang On, I continuously worked overtime and barely made it home at the end of the day.
This company offered to double my salary and also include overtime pay. Plus there was a surprisingly large sign-on bonus. They even said they would provide me with an apartment!
I wondered why he didn't accept the offer and resign from Sega.
I wondered why he didn't accept the offer and resign from Sega.
I don't think it was a matter of loyalty to Sega or anything like that. I don't remember much about it. However, I do remember what I said when I turned him down.
'Is that what I'm worth?'
And that was it. I remember that even though I was feeling shaken, I replied very coolly, without changing my expression at all.
This may have be a youthful mistake. But, no matter how tough things get, there are times when a man feels like he has to endure the situation. It's not always like that. My feelings wavered whilst being 'poached', but I wanted to appear 'hard-boiled'!
After that, I was headhunted multiple times, but I don't recall all the details.
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