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The Special Investigation Department of the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office arrested Yuji Naka, co-creator of Sonic the Hedgehog, due to being suspected of insider trading again during his time working at Square Enix. Naka is one of the two suspects of purchasing stocks of Ateam Entertainment Inc., co-developers of Final Fantasy VII: The First Soldier, prior to the game’s release. [Thanks, Game Watch!]
Yuji Naka along with Taisuke Sasaki, a former Square Enix employee, was arrested a second time on December 7, 2022. They are suspects in two different insider trading scandals. The individuals involved are accused of buying roughly 120,000 shares of Ateam stock between January and February 2021, after learning about the development of Final Fantasy VII: The First Soldier. The value of the stocks amount to approximately 144.7 million yen.
The individuals were originally arrested earlier in November 2022 for insider trading involving Aiming Inc. and Square Enix, developers of Dragon Quest Tact.
Yuji Naka recently worked with Square Enix in Balan Wonderworld. In April 2022, he attempted to sue Square Enix after his removal from the project shortly before release. He revealed the information on a Twitter thread, in which he accused Square Enix and developer Arzest of being responsible of the release state of the game.
Balan Wonderworld is available for the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and PC.
