Yu Suzuki is the man. He has unfortunately been rather inactive in the gaming world ever since Shenmue tanked, but he is truly the king of arcade gaming, innovating the field time and time again during the 80's and 90's. James Mielke, who works at Q Entertainment has interviewed Yu Suzuki for 1UP and the first part, talking about the early days of his career amongst other things, is up right now with further installments coming up later in the week. It's defiantly worth checking out.
EDIT: Part two is up now. in this part we get a lot of info on the production of Shenmue, why Suzuki has been so quiet lately, and some rather fascinating insights into the production of Space Harrier.