Final Fantasy XIV Director & Producer Naoki Yoshida is certainly one of the most popular developers in the world and a fan brought that admiration to the next level.
A Reddit user named Rukongai announced that they had the chain to name an asteroid, so they decided to christen it “Yoshidanaoki” to pay homage to the developer.
The claim is proven by the fact that the asteroid, which was discovered during a survey in 2006, appears in NASA’s database with its brand new name and a small blurb explaining who Naoki Yoshida is.
This caused considerable buzz especially among Japanese fans, so much that today the fact was reported on Japanese national TV during the morning news showcasing social media trends from the day before, as shown before In a recording from TBS by Twitter user 中途半端.
The video reports Yoshida-san’s reaction, who responded with his usual humor, mentioning that he hopes the asteroid named after him won’t enter a collision orbit with Earth, as he would not want to become the enemy of all living things on the planet.
Naoki Yoshida holds a special place in the hearts of many gamers as he led the quasi-miraculous turnaround of Final Fantasy XIV, from the extremely negative reception of the original version 1.0 in 2010 to the successful relaunch in 2012, followed by meteoric (pun entirely intended) growth culminated with the recent Endwalker expansion. The game has passed 25 million registered players and is currently the most profitable title in the history of the series.
Currently, Yoshida-san is also working as producer on Final Fantasy XVI.
Final Fantasy XIV is currently available for PlayStation 4, PS5, and PC. The Endwalker expansion has been released a few months ago and you can read our recent review.
You can also read more about the changes planned for the longer term, including a refresh of the graphics.