Iconic Japanese shooter studio had unique reservations about Sony’s PS1: “I don’t want to work with them because they’ve got beards.”

There are plenty of reasons why I prefer to keep my distance from strangers instead of making new friends, and while “I’m scared” tops the list, “they have a beard” sometimes sneaks in at fifth or even 25th place. This sentiment resonates with Hitoshi Hamada, the original studio lead for Raiden, who found the facial hair of some Sony employees quite off-putting three decades ago.

Richard Honeywood, a veteran in localization, shares this story while reminiscing about his time with the now-defunct Raiden developer Seibu Kaihatsu during the early days of the PlayStation. He recalls how, alongside “pocketing my Japanese Nenkin, which is akin to social security or a pension system in Japan, since they assumed foreigners wouldn’t use it,” Seibu Kaihatsu was hesitant about embarking on what would become a cherished partnership with Sony.

“Sony Music reached out to us; it wasn’t even PlayStation or Sony back then,” he explains. “Some executives visited our office, bringing along international staff. That’s why I was pulled into the meeting.”

“They discussed the creation of the PlayStation and wanted us to port [Raiden and Raiden 2] as a launch title for the console,” Honeywood continues. This collaboration eventually resulted in the highly sought-after compilation shooter, The Raiden Project, which debuted on PS1 in 1995.

However, it seems Hamada wasn’t focused on the legacy aspect; he was more concerned about the stray hairs…

“We had a discussion, and our boss Hamada-san said he’d think it over,” Honeywood recounts. “He shook hands with them as they left, then turned around and asked, ‘What do you think? Should we even consider this PlayStation title?’

“Everyone was a bit doubtful, and even he expressed, ‘I don’t want to work with them because they have beards.’ He remarked, ‘Japanese people shouldn’t have beards. Sending someone with a beard to handle business is inappropriate.'” While that logic might be hard to argue with, Honeywood clearly had a different perspective – “we went back and forth,” he says, “and ultimately agreed that we had nothing to lose.”

Metal Gear Solid 2’s surprising Raiden twist caught even Solid Snake’s voice actor off guard, who only learned about it while recording for the game: “Okay… well, we’ll see how people feel about that.”