Hidetaka Suehiro

Born from Buddhist monks, Swery lived in a temple in his childhood.^[4] He first got his monk license in high school,^[5] but only became a certified Buddhist monk in 2016 within Jōdo Shinshū Buddhism.^[6]

Suehiro received a degree in film and video advertising at Osaka University of Arts.^[7] He decided against pursuing a career in the film industry, as he felt it was "very conservative".^[8]

In November 2015, he announced that he would be taking a health-related break from game development in order to focus on recovering from reactive hypoglycemia.^[9][10]

Swery is often called the DrinKING, posting numerous photos of him with alcoholic beverages,^[11] but is recently on a sobriety streak.^{[citation needed]}

Sharapova, a stuffed toy monkey, is Swery's "partner". Swery brings him everywhere in his travels.^[12] He has a yakuza-styled back tattoo with his name and Sharapova at the center.^[13]

Swery decided to join the game industry after graduation and worked at various game companies including SNK. In January 2002 he was one of the founding members of Access Games.^[7]

The first game he directed was the PlayStation 2 game Spy Fiction released in 2003.^[7] The game is a third-person military themed stealth game and the target audience was Western players rather than Japanese players.^[7]

Production began in 2004 on a game titled Rainy Woods, which was then cancelled in 2007. Work was restarted under the new title Deadly Premonition and it was released in 2010. A survival horror game, it also placed emphasis on targeting Western gamers rather than Japanese players.^[7] That game made its way to the 2012 Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition with the title "Most Critically Polarizing Survival Horror Game" because reviews of the game ranged so heavily.^{[14] [15]}

In 2014, he partnered with Microsoft to develop an Xbox One game titled D4: Dark Dreams Don't Die, which utilizes the Kinect motion-sensing device. The game was highlighted at GDC Next 2013 as one of their "GDC Next 10",^[16] where chosen developers give talks on the inspiration behind their upcoming games.

In 2015, he gave a lecture in Osaka and at GDC 2015 regarding physical input in video games and the Kinect device. He also opened a booth along with Access Games at Penny Arcade Expo East 2015.

On 31 October 2016, he announced his departure from Access Games.^[17] A new video game studio was later founded by Suehiro on 1 November 2016 as White Owls Inc. White Owls was formally revealed to the public on 15 January 2017.^[18]

Suehiro is a good friend of fellow game creator Goichi Suda. Appearing on a livestream in 2019, the pair revealed they worked on a cancelled PlayStation VR game together, after which they decided to collaborate on a horror title. Just before the stream, Suda titled it Hotel Barcelona, and both envisioned a "light and easy to play" game for mobile platforms or Nintendo Switch.^[19] In 2023, it has resurfaced as a slasher film parody action game for consoles and PC.^[20]