Kazunori Yamauchi
Kazunori Yamauchi is the producer of the Gran Turismo series, as well as the CEO of Polyphony Digital. He is the creator of Gran Turismo, but he developed the first game in secret as Sony thought the concept of it was boring, and so they didn't really like it. Sony at the time wanted direct competition to Nintendo's massively successful Mario Kart 64, and as such, Kazunori's team known back then as Polys Entertainment was put to work on Motor Toon Grand Prix. The game was received pretty well so a sequel was released, along with some secret cars once you complete the game, one being a F1 racing car and the other being a NASCAR-type racing car. Afterwards Sony let Kazunori and his team to work on Gran Turismo, which by the way shared the same suspension/physics engine as Motor Toon Grand Prix 2. Gran Turismo eventually became the best-selling game on the PS1, with it's sequel in the third place.