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Nintendo Entertainment Planning & Development (commonly abbreviated as Nintendo EPD) is Nintendo's new software division formed in September 2015 that consolidates the Nintendo Entertainment Analysis & Development with Nintendo Software Planning & Development into a single division. It is lead by Shinya Takahashi, former General Manager of SPD, with Katsuya Eguchi and Yoshiaki Koizumi as his Deputy General Managers, running the Kyoto and Tokyo groups respectively.

History[]

Nintendo was starting to consolidate its software development for a while prior to new division. In 2013, Nintendo moved all of its Kyoto staff into a single building. With the new president in 2015, there was sweeping reorganization that affected both software and hardware with Nintendo Integrated Research & Development turning into Nintendo Platform Technology Development and Nintendo EAD with Nintendo SPD uniting to form this division. The lack of internally developed games gives vagueness to structure of the new division but, it looks structured similarly to former divisions.

Important Members[]

Hierarchy[]

Currently, it is unclear how the leadership is fully set up in the division, but most of the leadership of the two earlier divisions seem to remain. Shigeru Miyamoto acts as creative fellow but, he no longer responsible for all of Nintendo's game development with his role being absorbed by Shinya Takahashi. Instead, he leads specific projects, not all which is directly tied to gaming. Katsuya Eguchi and Yoshiaki Koizumi are under Takahashi and supervise more directly at their respective sites. Beneath them are deputy general managers. Some deputy general managers like Kensuke Tanabe, Takashi Tezuka, and Eiji Aonuma are considered senior executive officers and have larger jurisdiction. Hisashi Nogami and Yoshiaki Koizumi are considered deputy managers due to having involvement in multiple teams. Koichi Hayashida, Aya Kyogoku, and Kouichi Kawamoto are known group managers in charge of specific production groups. The known groups and their respective group managers are as followed:

Number Formerly Development type Manager Works
1 SPD2 External Unknown (since 2020) Second-party developed games (2015-2020)
2 SPD4 External Unknown (since 2019) Most Mario spinoffs, Super Smash Bros series (2015-2020)

Second-party developed games (2020-present)

3 EAD3 Internal Makoto Miyanaga The Legend of Zelda series
4 EAD5
SDD
Internal Kouichi Kawamoto Experimental and casual-oriented games
5 EAD2 Internal Aya Kyogoku Animal Crossing series, Splatoon series
6 SPD3 External Unknown Metroid Prime series, Paper Mario series, WarioWare series, Luigi's Mansion series
7 SPD1 Internal/External Katsuya Yamano 2D Metroid series
8 EAD Tokyo Internal Koichi Hayashida 3D Super Mario series
9 EAD1 Internal Kosuke Yabuki Mario Kart series, ARMS
10 EAD4 Internal Hiroyuki Kimura 2D Super Mario Bros. series, Super Mario Maker series, Pikmin series
11 N/A Internal/External Hideki Konno Mobile games

See Also[]

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