An interesting interview with the co-founder of MonolithSoft, Hirohide Sugiura, from the June 4th edition of Famitsu 2020, has been translated by Lugalbanda of Xenomira. The interview is not exactly news, but when I found out about it I knew it would be worthwhile to make it available on this study guide. Previously, only a part of it was translated by Oni Dino of Nintendo Everything. The part he translated was this:
Sugiura: It all started when I played Xenogears back then. I was in charge of another game at the time, but Xenogears really stood out prominently among the rest, and I fell in love with it. Afterward, we put together plans for a Xenogears 2, but Square at the time had a lot of financial investment in their movie division, so it was extremely difficult to get things put into production internally. Despite that, I knew somehow I had to make something from these ideas, so I chose to go my own way.
That must’ve been some impression Xenogears had on you.
Sugiura: Tetsuya Takahashi, Yasuyuki Honne and 27 others felt the same. So with the help of Masaya Nakamura (founder of Namco), we went ahead with establishing Monolith Soft. We did negotiate with other video game companies when going solo, but I was a big fan of Namco – so much so that I even applied to their new hires after graduation. Anyway, after meeting with Nakamura, it was Namco’s outstanding sensibilities that was the deciding factor for us.
So that’s how Monolith Soft came to be.
Sugiura: The number one motivation for me was because I loved the world that Takahashi created. And that fact still holds true to this day.
The interview focuses on the 20th anniversary of the founding of the company, and since the founding of MonolithSoft occured during the height of the company's interest in the Xenogears and Xenosaga series, basically creating the company for the main purpose of making a sequel to Xenogears in some way, it is a valuable source for future updates to the history articles. Since Sugiura is a huge fan of Xenogears, and the main patron of Takahashi, interviews with him have usually proven to be very interesting. He was the first person to publically express an interest in returning to the Xenosaga series one day, before both Soraya and Takahashi later did as well.
