 Following the release of the original Sonic the Hedgehog, creator Yuji Naka quit Sega due to disagreements over its corporate policies. Mark Cerny, who had recently founded the Sega Technical Institute (STI) at Sega of America, met with Naka in Japan and offered him a higher salary and more creative freedom if he joined STI. Naka agreed, and Hirokazu Yasuhara, lead level designer of Sonic the Hedgehog, also decided to move to STI. Yasuhara had been assigned to help Cerny establish STI in 1990, but the outbreak of the Gulf War delayed his move to the United States by three months, during which he joined Sonic Team and became part of the Sonic project.
