(born July 23, 1959) is a Japanese

video game designer Video game design is the process of designing the rules and content of video games in the Video game development#Pre-production, pre-production stage and designing the gameplay, environment, storyline and characters in the Video game development ...

, director, and producer. He has worked at Nintendo since 1982. He has directed several games in the ''

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 M ...

'' series. He is one of the most prominent members of Nintendo's former Research and Development 1 division, along with Gunpei Yokoi and Toru Osawa.

Career

Sakamoto is a key member in the development of the ''Metroid'' series. Sakamoto grew up with Nintendo toys, which he felt were inventive. The company hired him in 1982, when he graduated from art college. His first projects at Nintendo were the design of pixel art for the Game & Watch handheld ''

Donkey Kong is a video game series and media franchise created by the Japanese game designer Shigeru Miyamoto for Nintendo. It follows the adventures of Donkey Kong (character), Donkey Kong, a large, powerful gorilla, and other members of the List of Don ...

'', and the

arcade game An arcade game or coin-op game is a coin-operated entertainment machine typically installed in public businesses such as restaurants, bars and amusement arcades. Most arcade games are presented as primarily game of skill, games of skill and in ...

'' Donkey Kong Jr.'' He turned to the

Nintendo Entertainment System The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is an 8-bit home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan on 15 July 1983 as the and was later released as the redesigned NES in several test markets in the ...

afterward, for which he designed the games '' Wrecking Crew'', '' Balloon Fight'' and '' Gumshoe''. Sakamoto also was the lead scenario writer and creator of '' Famicom Detective Club'' with its first two entries, some of the most influential

visual novels A visual novel (VN) is a form of digital interactive fiction. Visual novels are often associated with the medium of video games, but are not always labeled as such themselves. They combine a textual narrative with static or animated illustratio ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

in the 80s. Sakamoto created characters for ''

'' (under the alias 'Shikamoto'), and was a game designer on '' Kid Icarus''. He also directed '' Super Metroid'', '' Metroid Fusion'', '' Metroid: Zero Mission'', '' Metroid: Other M'', and was the producer for '' Metroid: Samus Returns'' and '' Metroid Dread''. Sakamoto's design work is also found in Nintendo games including '' Balloon Kid'' (1990), '' Game & Watch Gallery'' (1997), '' Wario Land 4'' (2001), and the '' WarioWare'' series.

Philosophy

Sakamoto has stated that he wants to live up to public expectations of Nintendo to deliver products similarly unique to those of his youth, describing ''WarioWare, Inc.'' as an example. Regarding his professional relationship with Nintendo producer

Shigeru Miyamoto is a Japanese video game designer, video game producer, producer and Creative director#Video games, game director at Nintendo, where he has served as one of its representative directors as an executive since 2002. Widely regarded as one o ...

, he believes his mission is not to compete with but to "always come up with something very different from what Mr. Miyamoto is likely to do".

Works

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Sakamoto, Yosio 1959 births Japanese video game designers Japanese video game directors Living people Metroid Nintendo people Japanese video game writers