|
is a former Japanese video game designer. He is best known as the creator of the arcade games ''Pac-Man'' (1980) and ''Pole Position'' (1982).〔http://ign.com/articles/2015/04/03/the-top-10-most-influential-racing-games-ever?page=2〕 == Life and career == Iwatani was born in the Meguro ward of Tokyo, Japan. In 1977,〔(【引用サイトリンク】 Toru Iwatani, 1986 PacMan Designer | Programmers At Work )〕 he joined the computer software company Namco. This is where he started his career in the video game business. There, he came up with the idea for a game called "Pakku-Man" and in 1980, he, along with programmer Shigeo Funaki (舟木 茂雄), a hardware engineer, a cabinet designer and Toshio Kai (甲斐 敏夫) for sound and music, finished the game. It was released to the Japanese public on May 22 of that year, where it became a huge success. It caught the attention of arcade-game manufacturer Midway, who bought the United States rights for the game and released the game in the U.S. as ''Pac-Man''. Due to its innovative concept and continuing international popularity, it is regarded as one of the all-time classic video games. Iwatani returned to his ''Pac-Man'' roots in 2007 when he developed ''Pac-Man Championship Edition'' for the Xbox 360, which he states is the final game he will develop. Iwatani went on to create a few other video games, including ''Libble Rabble'', but none of them reached the amount of success that ''Pac-Man'' did. He was promoted within the ranks of Namco, eventually being responsible for overseeing the administration of the company. In a VH-1 ''Game Break'' interview, Iwatani said he did not personally profit from the creation of Pac-Man, saying, "The truth of the matter is, there were no rewards per se for the success of Pac-Man. I was just an employee. There was no change in my salary, no bonus, no official citation of any kind." From April 2005 he taught the subject of Character Design Studies at Osaka University of Arts as visiting professor. Iwatani left Namco in March 2007 to become a full-time lecturer at Tokyo Polytechnic University. On June 2, 2010 just before visiting an event called the Festival of Games in the Netherlands, Iwatani was photographed showing the original sketches of Pac-Man, making it the first public appearance of these designs. The next day, June 3, 2010, at the Festival of Games, Iwatani received a certificate from Guinness World Records for Pac-Man having the most "coin-operated arcade machines" installed world wide: 293,822. The record was set and recognized in 2005, and recorded in the ''Guinness World Records: Gamer's Edition 2008''. Iwatani made a cameo appearance in the film ''Pixels'', which prominently features Pac-Man as an antagonist. A fictionalized version of Iwatani, portrayed by Denis Akiyama, also appears in the film. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Toru Iwatani」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|