Yoshio Sakamoto (坂本 賀勇 Sakamoto Yoshio, born July 23, 1959) is a Japanese game designer working for Nintendo. He is the co-creator of Metroid series of video games, having worked as director, scenario designer, and script writer for many of the games.
Sakamoto grew up with Nintendo toys, which he noted to be inventive and occasionally "strange". The company hired him in 1982, when he came out of art college. Recruited by Shigeru Miyamoto, his first position was as designer on the team behind the arcade game Donkey Kong Jr.. He turned to the Nintendo Entertainment System afterwards, helping design Kid Icarus and directing Metroid in January 1986.
Following the original Metroid, Sakamoto has directed all Metroid games produced internally by Nintendo except Metroid II: Return of Samus. These are Super Metroid, Metroid Fusion, and Metroid: Zero Mission. He also supervised the production of Retro Studios's Metroid Prime series as well the upcoming Metroid: Other M which is being co-developed with Team Ninja.
Sakamoto's design work is found in various other Nintendo games, including Balloon Kid (1990), Kaeru No Tame Ni Kane Wa Naru (1992, Japan only), Teleroboxer (1995), Galactic Pinball (1995), Game & Watch Gallery (1997), Wario Land 4 (2001), Super Smash Bros. Melee (2001), Wario World (2003), WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$! (2003), WarioWare: Smooth Moves (2006) and Card Hero DS (2008). He is one of the most prominent members of Nintendo's R&D1 department, within which he founded the Team Shikamaru group dedicated to script writing.
Sakamoto has stated that he wants to live up to public expectations of Nintendo to deliver products similarly unique to those of his youth, describing WarioWare, Inc. as a prime example of this effort. Regarding his professional relationship with Shigeru Miyamoto, he believes his own mission is not to compete but to "always come up with something very different from what Mr. Miyamoto is likely to do".
References
- "Yoshio Sakamoto". N-Sider.com. http://www.n-sider.com/personnelview.php?personnelid=266. Retrieved on October 24 2005.
- "Exclusive: Metroid designer Yoshio Sakamoto speaks!". Computer And Video Games. September 1, 2003. http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=95708.
- "Rap Sheet - Person : Yoshio Sakamoto". MobyGames. http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,74231/. Retrieved on October 24 2005.
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