Katsuya Eguchi

Katsuya Eguchi (Japanese: 江口 勝也, Hepburn: Eguchi Katsuya, born April 7, 1965)[1] is a Japanese game designer, producer, and deputy general manager at Nintendo Entertainment Planning & Development, most known for being a creator and a spokesperson of the Animal Crossing series.[2][3][4][5]

Katsuya Eguchi
江口 勝也
Eguchi on stage during Nintendo's press conference at E3 2012
Born (1965-04-07) April 7, 1965
Tokyo, Japan
Occupationvideo game designer, director and producer
EmployerNintendo (1986–present)
Notable work
Star 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)

He was born in 1965 in Tokyo, Japan 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. Other games he has directed include Super Mario World, Star Fox 2, Wave Race 64, and Yoshi's Story.[6][7][8]

Eguchi served as a senior producer of his own EAD software development group, but currently serves as the Deputy General Manager of Nintendo's Entertainment Planning & Development division.[9]

Work on Animal Crossing

Eguchi is credited with the creation of the Animal Crossing series.[10][11][12] 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."[13] And in addition: "Eguchi wanted to recreate the feeling of being alone in a new town, away from friends and family."[13]

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."[14][15]

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."[16][15]

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 Chief 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
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 Management
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 Management
gollark: They're very expensive now. It's so bee.
gollark: Can you move them to the hypothetical new one?
gollark: Or creating a new Steam account.
gollark: Well, your other option is presumably mind control.
gollark: I see.

References
  1. Schmitz, Tobias (3 May 2020). "Inside Nintendo 172: Animal-Crossing-Produzent Katsuya Eguchi im Entwicklerportrait". Nintendo-Online. Retrieved 4 May 2020.
  2. Samantha Sofka (March 28, 2014). "Animal Crossing's Katsuya Eguchi Explains How the Series Embraces Change". nintendolife.com. Retrieved February 22, 2016.
  3. Stephen Totilo (September 14, 2015). "Some Inside Baseball For Nintendo Fans As EAD Transforms". kotaku.com. Retrieved February 22, 2016.
  4. Stew Shearer (September 25, 2013). "Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto Talks About Passing the Torch". escapistmagazine.com. Retrieved February 22, 2016.
  5. Chris Schilling (June 1, 2013). "Animal Crossing New Leaf: a different kind of social experience". telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved February 22, 2013.
  6. Savino, Candace (2008-07-16). "E308: Live highlights from Nintendo's private conference". Nintendo Wii Fanboy. Weblogs, Inc. Retrieved 2008-07-17.
  7. Becky Chambers (March 29, 2014). "Nintendo Devs Credit Animal Crossing: New Leaf's Success To Having A Gender-Balanced Team". themarysue.com. Retrieved February 22, 2016.
  8. Jason Cipriano (May 5, 2013). "'Animal Crossing' Developers Pick Their Favorite Characters". mtv.com. Retrieved February 22, 2016.
  9. Rad, Chloi; Otero, Jose. "Nintendo Reveals Restructuring Plans". IGN. Retrieved 15 September 2015.
  10. 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.
  11. Stephen Totilo (June 8, 2013). "No Retro Games in Future Animal Crossings—With One Possible Exception". kotaku.com. Retrieved February 22, 2016.
  12. Brett Elston (July 15, 2008). "E3 08: Nintendo Press Conference". gamesradar.com. Retrieved February 24, 2016.
  13. 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.
  14. Edge, 2008
  15. James Newton (December 14, 2011). "Feature: Celebrating 10 Years of Animal Crossing". nintendolife.com. Retrieved February 24, 2016.
  16. Brandon Sheffield (May 8, 2006). "Crossing into the Mainstream: Katsuya Eguchi on Animal Crossing". gamasutra.com. Retrieved February 24, 2016.
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