Katsuya Eguchi
Japanese game designer
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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]
.jpg)
Katsuya Eguchi | |
|---|---|
| 江口 勝也 | |
Eguchi on stage during Nintendo's press conference at E3 2012 holding a white Wii U GamePad | |
| Born | April 7, 1965 Tokyo, Japan |
| Occupations | video game designer, director and producer |
| Years active | 1986–present |
| Employer | Nintendo |
| Notable work | Star Fox Animal Crossing Wii Sports |
| Title | Manager 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. |
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]