You know, Zach, you bring up a really good point. A fact that is really easy to miss is that Yoshi-P turns 40 this year! (Yeah I know he looks like 25.) He's been doing great work behind the scenes at SE for quite some time (he was a lead designer for DQX also). Compare that to Sakaguchi who directed FF1 when he was 25. I think this might be indicative of some kind of "old guard"-ism in the Japanese games industry. All the big names in Japan are super old now. Miyamoto. Inafune. Matsuno. Kojima. Even "upstarts" like Suda51, Fumito Ueda, and Akihiro Hino are in their 40s already. It's probably a combination of lack of indie scene in Japan (aside from dojin games which are of questionable legality and almost never land publishing deals) and a culture of paternalism where young designers are nurtured for a little too long. Compare this to "budding" Western developers: Jenova Chen (age unknown, named "top 35 innovators in the world under the age of 35"), Markus Persson (33), Derek Yu (30), Kim Swift (30), Jane McGonigal (35), and Sean Vanaman (under 30). Inafune was probably at least partially right when he said Japanese games are dying. They're not dead yet, but they will be when all the old talent (sadly) departs for the afterlife because there isn't enough new blood to infuse. So here's to Yoshi-P and all his younger colleagues! Hope there's many more where that came from!