Former Sega exec: Billy Hatcher nearly named Giant Egg

Mike Fischer, a former Sega executive, reported in a recent interview that the GameCube game Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg was originally planned to be titled Giant Eggs and was renamed for the U.S. market.

Fischer recalled, “He wanted to call it Giant Eggs, and we’re like, ‘Well, to lay a big egg in the U.S. just means a failure.'” He said marketing and localization concerns drove the decision to change the name.

A member of Fischer’s team proposed using the protagonist’s name to make the character the focus. Fischer explained, “The main character is the boy, not the egg.” The game was released in English as Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg.

Fischer described resistance from creator Yuji Naka. “Naka-san hated it,” Fischer recounted, and he added a controversial anecdote from a U.S. visit: “Another name for rooster is cock. Can we call the game Giant Cock in English?” Fischer said he has witnesses to the exchange.

The interview also covered internal disagreements on other projects. Fischer criticized attempts to rewrite credit on Blinx: The Time Sweeper and reported that Tetsuya Ōshima had worked on an early Blinx concept. Fischer related an incident at an Xbox debut where Naka refused to sit in the same row as Ōshima, accusing him of trying to steal credit.

Fischer noted that Sega assigned significant creative responsibility to women on development teams, naming Emiko and Kodama-san as examples. He said he had not realized Kodama had a role on Sonic and had associated her mainly with the Phantasy Star series.

Fischer’s comments cover the naming and localization decisions for Billy Hatcher as well as personnel disputes and staffing assignments during his time at Sega.