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born January 16, 1942 is a Japanese businessman. Satomi is known as the founder of Sammy Corporation, which merged with the Japan-based video game and arcade game producer Sega to form the holding company Sega Sammy Holdings. He is among the 50 richest people in Japan, and is a top-ranked owner of Thoroughbred horses, like the Satono Diamond.
Sammy experienced significant growth when it began manufacturing machines for the pachislot and pachinko industry (one of Japan's most popular forms of gambling) and was successfully listed on the First Section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange in March 2001. Sammy Corporation is now the leading manufacturer of pachislot and pachinko machines.
With 22% shares bought in 2003, Sammy then bought a controlling share 1.1 billion dollars in Sega in 2004. Hajime Satomi heads the newly combined $4.5 billion (sales) group, now called Sega Sammy Holdings Inc. with its main businesses being those of Sammy Corporation and Sega. He succeeded Hisao Oguchi, who became vice chairman and chief creative officer of the new board. Satomi's interest in Sega came from his relationship with the previous owner of Sega, Isao Okawa, who helped him stay afloat during difficult times and gave Satomi a 8 billion yen loan, from which Satomi never missed a payment. Okawa being impressed, asked if he could do something about Sega.
Satomi played a role in managing Sega IP at times. Talking to Sega employees in the first years of Sega Sammy, he ensured to Toshihiro Nagoshi that he will be able to release Yakuza when it was not fully greenlit by Sega. He also was persistent into getting the Sonic the Hedgehog movie franchise started.
Son of Hajime Satomi, Haruki Satomi, succeeded his father in the year of 2017 as Representative Director, President and COO, fully stepping down from the CEO role in 2021. Haruki's decision to sell Sega's arcade location business in 2022 was not something Hajime would have done, but he did not intervene, delegating key decisions to his son.
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