Katsuya Eguchi

Katsuya Eguchi
江口 勝也
Eguchi on stage during Nintendo's press conference at E3 2012 holding a white Wii U GamePad
Born (1965-04-07) April 7, 1965 (age 60)
Tokyo, Japan
Occupationsvideo game designer, director and producer
Years active1986–present
EmployerNintendo
Notable workStar Fox
Animal Crossing
Wii Sports
TitleManager at Nintendo EAD (2003-2013)
Deputy General Manager of Nintendo EAD (2013-2015)
Deputy General Manager of Nintendo EPD (2015-present)
Director at the board of directors in SRD Co., Ltd.

Katsuya Eguchi (Japanese: 江口 勝也, Hepburn: Eguchi Katsuya; born April 7, 1965)[1] is a Japanese video game designer, director and producer at Nintendo. He is the co-creator of the Animal Crossing series and has worked on games including Super Mario World (1990), Star Fox 2 (1995), Wave Race 64 (1996) and Yoshi's Story (1997).[2][3][4][5][6][7][8]

Eguchi was born in 1965 in Tokyo and grew up in Chiba Prefecture. He began work at Nintendo in 1986 and spent some time doing promotional artwork before starting as a designer on Super Mario Bros. 3. He first served as director for Star Fox in 1993.[2][3][4] Eguchi became a senior producer of his own EAD software development group and now serves as the Deputy General Manager of Nintendo's Entertainment Planning & Development division.[9]

After Nintendo's acquisition of SRD Co., Ltd. (System Research and Development) in 2022, Eguchi became the Nintendo representative as part of the board of directors.[10]

Work on Animal Crossing

Eguchi is credited with the creation of the Animal Crossing series.[11][12][13] Mental Floss writes that "Animal Crossing was inspired by Eguchi’s experiences...when he was a 21 year-old graduate who’d taken the decisive step of moving from Chiba, where he’d grown up and studied, to Nintendo’s HQ in Kyoto."[14] And in addition: "Eguchi wanted to recreate the feeling of being alone in a new town, away from friends and family."[14]

In an interview with Edge, Eguchi described the beginnings of Animal Crossing:

"Animal Crossing features three themes: family, friendship and community. But the reason I wanted to investigate them was a result of being so lonely when I arrived in Kyoto! Chiba is east of Tokyo and quite a distance from Kyoto, and when I moved there I left my family and friends behind. In doing so, I realised that being close to them – being able to spend time with them, talk to them, play with them – was such a great, important thing. I wondered for a long time if there would be a way to recreate that feeling, and that was the impetus behind the original Animal Crossing."[15][16]

And in an interview with Gamasutra he also described the game's role in a family like his:

"Another thing is that I'd always get home really late. And my family plays games, and would sometimes be playing when I got home. And I thought to myself – they're playing games, and I'm playing games, but we're not really doing it together. It'd be nice to have a play experience where even though we're not playing at the same time, we're still sharing things together. So this was something that the kids could play after school, and I could play when I got home at night, and I could kind of be part of what they were doing while I wasn't around. And at the same time they get to see things I've been doing. It was kind of a desire to create a space where my family and I could interact more, even if we weren't playing together."[17][16]

Works

Year Title Position
1988 Super Mario Bros. 3 Level designer
1990 Super Mario World Area director
1993 Star Fox Director
1996 Wave Race 64
1998 Yoshi's Story Level designer
2000 Mario Artist: Talent Maker Advisor
2001 Animal Crossing Director
2005 Animal Crossing: Wild World Producer
2006 Wii Sports
Wii Play
Star Fox Command Supervisor
2008 Wii Music Producer
Animal Crossing: City Folk
2009 Wii Sports Resort
2012 Nintendo Land
Wii U Hardware producer
2013 Animal Crossing: New Leaf Producer
The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds Supervisor
2015 The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask 3D Senior producer
Splatoon General producer
Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer
The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes Supervisor
2016 The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD Senior producer
Tank Troopers General producer
2017 Arms
Splatoon 2
Star Fox 2 Director
2018 Splatoon 2: Octo Expansion General producer
Starlink: Battle for Atlas Producer
2019 Luigi's Mansion 3 Project manager
The Stretchers Producer
2020 Animal Crossing: New Horizons General producer
Good Job! Producer
Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition
Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics
Paper Mario: The Origami King Project manager
Kirby Fighters 2 General producer
Part Time UFO
2021 Buddy Mission Bond Producer
WarioWare: Get It Together! Project manager
2022 Xenoblade Chronicles 3 Producer
Splatoon 3 General producer
2023 Super Mario Bros. Wonder Production manager
WarioWare: Move It! Project manager

References

  1. ^ Schmitz, Tobias (3 May 2020). "Inside Nintendo 172: Animal-Crossing-Produzent Katsuya Eguchi im Entwicklerportrait". Nintendo-Online. Archived from the original on 16 January 2021. Retrieved 4 May 2020.
  2. ^ a b Savino, Candace (2008-07-16). "E308: Live highlights from Nintendo's private conference". Nintendo Wii Fanboy. Weblogs, Inc. Archived from the original on 2015-12-22. Retrieved 2008-07-17.
  3. ^ a b Becky Chambers (March 29, 2014). "Nintendo Devs Credit Animal Crossing: New Leaf's Success To Having A Gender-Balanced Team". themarysue.com. Archived from the original on July 30, 2017. Retrieved February 22, 2016.
  4. ^ a b Jason Cipriano (May 5, 2013). "'Animal Crossing' Developers Pick Their Favorite Characters". mtv.com. Archived from the original on March 28, 2016. Retrieved February 22, 2016.
  5. ^ Samantha Sofka (March 28, 2014). "Animal Crossing's Katsuya Eguchi Explains How the Series Embraces Change". nintendolife.com. Archived from the original on April 14, 2019. Retrieved February 22, 2016.
  6. ^ Stephen Totilo (September 14, 2015). "Some Inside Baseball For Nintendo Fans As EAD Transforms". kotaku.com. Archived from the original on April 14, 2019. Retrieved February 22, 2016.
  7. ^ Stew Shearer (September 25, 2013). "Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto Talks About Passing the Torch". escapistmagazine.com. Archived from the original on December 4, 2018. Retrieved February 22, 2016.
  8. ^ Chris Schilling (June 1, 2013). "Animal Crossing New Leaf: a different kind of social experience". telegraph.co.uk. Archived from the original on June 1, 2013. Retrieved February 22, 2013.
  9. ^ Rad, Chloi; Otero, Jose (14 September 2015). "Nintendo Reveals Restructuring Plans". IGN. Archived from the original on 15 September 2015. Retrieved 15 September 2015.
  10. ^ "会社概要".
  11. ^ Andrew H (March 27, 2014). "While Animal Crossing may never see a mobile game, there could be companion apps on the way". droidgamers.com. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved February 22, 2016.
  12. ^ Stephen Totilo (June 8, 2013). "No Retro Games in Future Animal Crossings—With One Possible Exception". kotaku.com. Archived from the original on March 3, 2016. Retrieved February 22, 2016.
  13. ^ Brett Elston (July 15, 2008). "E3 08: Nintendo Press Conference". gamesradar.com. Archived from the original on December 19, 2019. Retrieved February 24, 2016.
  14. ^ a b Ryan Lambie (July 1, 2015). "7 Surprising Facts About Nintendo's Animal Crossing". mentalfloss.com. Archived from the original on February 27, 2016. Retrieved February 24, 2016.
  15. ^ Edge, 2008
  16. ^ a b James Newton (December 14, 2011). "Feature: Celebrating 10 Years of Animal Crossing". nintendolife.com. Archived from the original on July 30, 2017. Retrieved February 24, 2016.
  17. ^ Brandon Sheffield (May 8, 2006). "Crossing into the Mainstream: Katsuya Eguchi on Animal Crossing". gamasutra.com. Archived from the original on August 27, 2021. Retrieved February 24, 2016.
allikas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katsuya_Eguchi