Nintendo has announced the upcoming retirement of Takashi Tezuka, a long-time developer who worked on games like Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda. Tezuka made his start at Nintendo working on sprites for the arcade version of Punch Out!! and was hired to work full-time for the company following his graduation from university. He is best known for developing games alongside Nintendo’s most famous employee, Shigeru Miyamoto, designing and directing flagship games for the company such as the original Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda.
As Miyamoto moved up through the company, Tezuka took over directing some of the best and most iconic Nintendo games in the aforementioned series, including Super Mario World and A Link to the Past. Essentially, Nintendo fans all over the world, particularly those who stick around for the credits after finishing a game, will be familiar with Tezuka’s name. For the last eight years or so, Tezuka has worked as an executive officer on Nintendo’s board of directors, while also working as a producer on recent releases such as Super Mario Bros. Wonder and Pikmin 4 as part of the company’s entertainment development and planning division.
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Takashi Tezuka To Retire From Nintendo
Nintendo recently announced that Takashi Tezuka would be retiring from his position as executive officer on the board of directors from June 26, 2026. This means that he has less than two months left in this role before his retirement. Tezuka is the second Nintendo veteran to leave the company in recent years. This news follows the announcement in January that long-time Mario Kart director, Hideki Konno left Nintendo in 2025. Both veteran developers worked at Nintendo for more than 40 years before departing.
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Three more board directors, Takuya Yoshimura, Katsuhiro Umeyama, and Keiko Akashi, will also be retiring from their roles on the same day. Yutaka Takenaga and Chika Saka are expected to join the board following shareholders’ approval of these additions. Tezuka will also be retiring from his role as senior officer of Nintendo’s entertainment development and planning division, ending his work as a producer at the company he has served for the past four decades.
The Tezuka-produced Super Mario Bros. Wonder is the only brand-new Super Mario game that has been released in the last eight years. Nintendo has recently been focusing on series that haven’t seen new entries for several years, such as Donkey Kong Banaza, Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, and the recently announced Star Fox 64 remake. By contrast, Tezuka’s series like Super Mario and The Legend of Zelda have seen consistent new entries over the years, even if Pikmin 4 was almost a decade in development.
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Nintendo is undergoing a number of changes behind the scenes, including the long-rumored Nintendo Switch 2 price increase, which will see the console increase in cost by as much as 20% in certain regions. The original lineup of Switch consoles also raised in price last year, and Nintendo’s subscription service, Nintendo Switch Online, will see its first ever increase starting from July 1, 2026. Nintendo is going through a number of changes at the moment and the departure of Tezuka is just one that players will notice.
- Released
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October 20, 2023
- ESRB
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E For Everyone // Mild Fantasy Violence
- Developer(s)
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Nintendo EPD
- Publisher(s)
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Nintendo
