Satoru Okada (岡田智 ''Okada Satoru'', born January 10, 1947) is the former general manager of Nintendo Research & Engineering, the division designing and developing

Nintendo is a Japanese multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It develops video games and video game consoles. Nintendo was founded in 1889 as by craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi and originally produced handmade playing cards ...

handheld game console A handheld game console, or simply handheld console, is a small, portable self-contained video game console with a built-in screen, game controls and speakers. Handheld game consoles are smaller than home video game consoles and contain the co ...

s. He is best known for creating the original

Game Boy The is an 8-bit fourth generation handheld game console developed and manufactured by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan on April 21, 1989, in North America later the same year, and in Europe in late 1990. It was designed by the same t ...

and its successors. He was also assistant producer and director of and contributor to several Nintendo games, notably ''

Metroid is an action-adventure game franchise created by Nintendo. The player controls the bounty hunter Samus Aran, who protects the galaxy from Space Pirates and other malevolent forces and their attempts to harness the power of the parasitic ...

'', released for the

Nintendo Entertainment System The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is an 8-bit third-generation home video game console produced by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan in 1983 as the commonly known as the The NES, a redesigned version, was released in America ...

in 1986. Okada entered Nintendo in 1969 and went on to work as an engineer at Nintendo Research & Development 1 with

Gunpei Yokoi , sometimes transliterated Gumpei Yokoi, was a Japanese video game designer. He was a long-time Nintendo employee, best known as creator of the Game & Watch handheld system, inventor of the cross-shaped Control Pad, the original designer of the ...

, who developed the hugely successful

Game & Watch The Game & Watch brand ( ''Gēmu & Uotchi''; called ''Tricotronic'' in West Germany and Austria, abbreviated as ''G&W'') is a series of handheld electronic games developed, manufactured, released, and marketed by Nintendo from 1980 to 1991. C ...

and Game Boy handheld game consoles. In 1996, Yokoi left Nintendo which caused R&D1 to split, its engineers creating a portable hardware division of which Okada became the general manager. His team lacked Yokoi but nevertheless developed hugely successful handheld consoles: the

Game Boy Color The (commonly abbreviated as GBC) is a handheld game console, manufactured by Nintendo, which was released in Japan on October 21, 1998 and to international markets that November. It is the successor to the Game Boy and is part of the Game ...

Game Boy Advance The (GBA) is a 32-bit handheld game console developed, manufactured and marketed by Nintendo as the successor to the Game Boy Color. It was released in Japan on March 21, 2001, in North America on June 11, 2001, in the PAL region on June 22, ...

, Game Boy Advance SP and

Nintendo DS The is a handheld game console produced by Nintendo, released globally across 2004 and 2005. The DS, an initialism for "Developers' System" or "Dual Screen", introduced distinctive new features to handheld games: two LCD screens working in t ...

. Okada initially opposed the Nintendo DS' dual-screen design but was overruled by

Hiroshi Yamauchi was a Japanese businessman and the third president of Nintendo, joining the company in 1949 until stepping down on 24 May 2002, being subsequently succeeded by Satoru Iwata. During his 53-year tenure, Yamauchi transformed Nintendo from a hanafu ...

. Okada also participated in the development of several Nintendo games, as the chief director of ''Metroid'', director of '' Kid Icarus'', ''

Solar Striker ''SolarStriker'' is a vertically scrolling shooter developed by Nintendo R&D1 with Minakuchi Engineering for the Nintendo Game Boy. It was first published in Japan on January 26, 1990, then released later in North America on February 2, 1990, a ...

'' (along with Keisuke Terasaki) and ''

Super Mario Land ''Super Mario Land'' is a 1989 side-scrolling platform video game developed and published by Nintendo as a launch game for its Game Boy handheld game console. It is the first ''Mario'' platform game to have been released for a handheld cons ...

'' and contributed to many other titles. Okada retired from Nintendo in January 2012.

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External links

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IGN: Okada on the Game Boy Advance
{{DEFAULTSORT:Okada, Satoru Nintendo people Japanese engineers 1947 births Living people General and operations managers