Just off the plane from London, Gamasutra met with Q Entertainment founder and Sega alum Tetsuya Mizuguchi. We encountered an even more pensive side of his usual soft-spoken persona, perhaps down to his whirlwind press tour for Q’s new PSP titles Every Extend Extra and Lumines 2, in addition to his forthcoming Lumines Live for Xbox Live Arcade. In this interview, he expressed strong opinions about the importance of names, the state of creativity in big companies in Japan, revealed the karaoke box origins of Lumines, and Q Entertainment’s push towards new types of media.

Gamasutra: When did you get in from London?

Tetsuya Mizuguchi: Just yesterday…

GS: Oh, how’s the jetlag?

TM: I think…I think it’s pretty bad.

GS: I’ll be in London next month – how was it?

TM: Really nice. You should go to the Tate Modern Museum, they have a very large Kandinsky exhibit right now. It was great. You should really check it out.

GS: That’s a good idea, I didn’t even think about that. If you happen to go to Amsterdam next time, check out their De Stijl collection.

Tetusya Mizuguchi

TM: De Stijl?

GS: Yeah, it was a maverick group in Holland, and for some time everyone thought they were very amateurish, but they wound up influencing a lot of great artists over time. It’s the largest collection in the world there, and right now the museum is right on the channel temporarily.

TM: Ok…

GS: So…have you played the new Sega Rally?

TM: (laughs) No, not yet.

Mizuguchi produced the original Sega Rally Championship (Sega, 1995)

GS: Do you feel any connection to your old products when someone comes out with a new version?

TM: You mean like Sega Rally, or…?

GS: Yeah.

TM: Hmm…not so much.