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He’s one of the biggest names in Japanese game development and he’s betting it all on the Wii U.

The visionary mind behind Devil’s Third, acclaimed Japanese game developer, Tomonobu Itagaki, walks into the small cubicle-like room tucked away in a quiet corner of Nintendo’s large E3 2014 booth.

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He glances up from his smartphone briefly, nods hello, removes his sunglasses and then moves towards a couch on the right side of the room, sprawling out comfortably across it, followed by his personal assistant and a translator from Nintendo.

Itagaki is small in stature, wears a silver studded belt, tight acid washed jeans covered in a strange pattern and has long, wispy hair — all distinctive features that combine to make him look more like an aging Japanese rockstar than a well-known video game developer.

But if you’re aware of the games Itagaki is famous for creating, the hyper-violent Ninja Gaiden and Ninja Gaiden 2 on the Xbox and the controversial Dead or Alive fighting series, a franchise known for featuring scantily clad women with abnormally large breasts (he also helped developedTemco Bowlin the early ’90s), his slightly bizarre image starts to make sense.

Also, in true rock star game developer fashion, Itagaki is about 10 minutes late for the interview.