Last night Nintendo held its latest investor call, and during the Q&A it cleared up the mystery surrounding what is happening with 42-year Nintendo veteran Takashi Tezuka, who had previously been implied to be retiring in May’s financial results. It turns out that yes, he is stepping down as an executive officer of the company, but in fact will be staying on at Nintendo as a producer.
Yoshi creator Tezuka, 65, has been with Nintendo since 1984 and worked closely with Miyamoto on both Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda before going on to direct many of the developer’s most popular titles, from Super Mario World to A Link to the Past. Given his age and four decades with the company, it seemed very reasonable that he would be retiring, and Nintendo’s ambiguous wording heavily suggested it was the case. So much so, in fact, that one investor asked the question (via machine translation):
Mr. Tezuka is stepping down today. Why is he stepping down? Could you please say a few words about this?
Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa first responded, saying “Tezuka has been involved since the days of Famicom software. He will continue to be involved in development moving forward. I’ll let him speak for himself now,” and handed it over to Tezuka himself.
Tezuka gave a short speech addressing his change in position, and also reflecting on his time with the company. “I am stepping down now as my term has come to an end,” the legendary developer explained, calling it “truly enjoyable work.” Discussing his experience with the ever-evolving industry, from his earliest days of creating some of the first digital entertainment, through to his excitement working with “new technologies like 3D, stereoscopic visuals, and motion controls,” he expressed his gratitude for his time with Nintendo. He then added, “I will continue to be involved as a producer, thank you for giving me this opportunity to address you all,” and received a huge applause.
The rest of the shareholder’s meeting Q&A was a pretty irritating experience of dodged questions and answers so vague as to be pointless. When asked about the lack of a union at Nintendo, Furukawa talked instead about raising pay levels, and when another investor asked if past creations of the likes of Wario Ware might come to mobile in the wake of Pictonico, they were instead told about Pikmin Bloom. Most annoying was that, when asked about Nintendo’s policy regarding the use of genAI and a commitment to “firmly assert you won’t use such things,” Furukawa ignored this entirely and instead spoke about how Nintendo will prevent its own IP from being infringed upon by AI.
But the good news remains that Tezuka will remain at Nintendo, and continue to produce games.