Yoshio Sakamoto

Yoshio Sakamoto
Yoshio Sakamoto at the Game Developers Conference 2010
Born	(1959-07-23) July 23, 1959 (age 57)
Occupation	Video game producer
Title	Executive Officer at Nintendo EPD

Yoshio Sakamoto (Japanese: 坂本 賀勇, Hepburn: Sakamoto Yoshio^?) (born July 23, 1959) is a Japanese video game producer and executive officer working for Nintendo, where he has worked since 1982.

Sakamoto is a key member in the development of the Metroid series, as he was its co-creator. Sakamoto grew up with Nintendo toys, which he noted to be inventive and occasionally "strange". The company hired him in 1982, when he came out of art college. His first projects at Nintendo were the design of pixel art for the Game & Watch handheld Donkey Kong, and the arcade game Donkey Kong Jr. He turned to the Nintendo Entertainment System afterward, for which he designed the games Wrecking Crew, Balloon Fight and Gumshoe. Sakamoto co-directed and created characters for Metroid (under the aliases 'Yamamoto' and 'Shikamoto'), and was a game designer on Kid Icarus. He also directed and wrote Super Metroid, Metroid Fusion, Metroid: Zero Mission, and Metroid: Other M. Sakamoto's design work is also found in various other Nintendo titles and franchises, including Balloon Kid (1990), Kaeru No Tame Ni Kane Wa Naru (1992, Japan only), Teleroboxer (1995), Galactic Pinball (1995), Game & Watch Gallery (1997), Trade & Battle: Card Hero (2000), Wario Land 4 (2001), Super Smash Bros. Melee (2001), Wario World (2003), WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$! (2003), WarioWare: Smooth Moves (2006) and Card Hero DS (2008). He is one of the most prominent members of Nintendo's former Research and Development 1 division.