Topic: Genyo Takeda Announces Retirement From Nintendo

[Shaymin]

One of the company's stalwarts will hang up the toolkit in June.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/44544/genyo-takeda-announces-retirement-from-nintendo

One of the chief architects of Nintendo's rise to video game prominence has announced his retirement after more than 45 years with the company.

Genyo Takeda has announced his retirement to take effect at the election of his replacement on the Nintendo board in June. Takeda joined Nintendo in 1971 and formed Nintendo R&D 3 in the early 1980s which was responsible for the design of the Famicom and Nintendo's later arcade machines as well as the Wii. Takeda also worked in software development, with a focus on titles for the US market such as NES Play Action Football and was the creative lead on the Punch-Out and Star Tropics series. Following the passing of Satoru Iwata in 2015, Takeda was serving as a "Technology Fellow" as a part of the Nintendo board.

His replacement on the board is expected to be Ko Shiota, who worked under Takeda in Nintendo's internal R&D team during the design of Wii and Wii U.

[Lemonade]

I wonder how involved he was with Switch production. Maybe now thats its out, he feels his work is done

[ClexYoshi]

May Takeda-San's work pass into legend. Startropics is still an INCREDIBLY important game to me, and Punch-Out!! to several more.

[MASB]

46 years. Astounding. Nintemdo's employee retention rate is absolutely incredible. I remember hearing on Warning A Huge Podcast, years ago (around 2010/2011) that a employee retention rate survey was done among Japanese videogame companies. Employee retention being measured in time, how long has the average employee worked there. Square Enix was the worst. Their employee retention rate was 18 months, meaning their workers burned out fast (this was entering into the titantic FF 13 Versus, FF 14 1.0 trials).

Nintendo's retention rate was the best in the survey. 20 years.

I remember reading an Iwata Asks about the Game & Watch. He interviewed three people who created the first games. They all joined Nintendo in the 1973-77 period and all three were still working there! It's amazing to think there is a significant, though shrinking pocket of workers at Nintendo who were there before Nintendo ever made a videogame.

[Oedo]

I wonder how involved he was with Switch production. Maybe now thats its out, he feels his work is done

There was a lengthy interview with Shinya Takahashi and Yoshiaki Koizumi in Famitsu where they touched on this, and it sounds like Takahashi, Koizumi, and Kouichi Kawamoto were leading the charge in many ways. I'm sure that Iwata, Miyamoto, and Takeda all had very prominent roles in the console's development, but it seems like Nintendo really is starting to lean on the next generation a lot more.

Thanks for all the fun, Takeda.

[rygar]

Punch-Out!! will always be synonymous with arcades for me. The music and sounds effects were a prominent part of the soundscape. I can still hear the ambient noise in the back of my mind.

I also dumped a ton of quarters in Popeye.

Wikipedia doesn't include Pro Wrestling, NES Play Action Football, or Ice Hockey in Takeda's "software works" list, but the body of the article suggests he had at least a tangential role in their production. NPAF lost out to Tecmo Bowl, but the other two games were massive titles at my schools.

[Mop it up]

Wow, to work at a company for 45 years, he probably really had a passion for the job.

StarTropics II is one of my fave NES games, I'm sad nothing has come of the series since then.