Akihiro Hino
"Dark Cloud" was the first game from developer Level-5, led by president and CEO Akihiro Hino, who also wrote, produced and designed the game. Development began immediately when the company was founded in October 1998 with a projected development time of two years. When the PlayStation 2 was announced on March 2, 1999, Sony president and CEO Ken Kutaragi used an early demo of "Dark Cloud" to show the capabilities of the platform. The demo showed a magic carpet flying through a valley, and some waterfall effects.