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Katsuya Eguchi (born May 15, 1965) is a Deputy General Manager at Nintendo EPD and a board member of SRD. He is the former manager of Nintendo EAD 2, and is mainly known for his involvement in the Animal Crossing series, and many games on the Wii line. He is a well known Nintendo designer whose expertise in the casual market has earned him his mark in the industry.
In 2013, Eguchi was promoted to Deputy General Manager of all Nintendo EAD development studios. After Nintendo's restructuring in 2015, he acquired the title of Deputy General Manager of Nintendo EPD along with Yoshiaki Koizumi.
Biography[]
Eguchi was born in Tokyo in 1965. Since he was a kid, he always enjoyed playing video games. His first experiences were in arcades, and soon later purchased a personal computer. He went to college where he studied computer graphics, and subsequently saw a job advertisement for Nintendo. Before being hired, he was required to pass an exam that, according to him, was not related to Nintendo products, video games, or computer graphics. He managed to get by, however, by giving detailed answers.
His earliest game at Nintendo is Super Mario Bros. 3, in which he acted as a level designer along with Hideki Konno. He appropriately went on to help develop the Super Nintendo Entertainment System launch title Super Mario World. His first game as director was Star Fox for the SNES, which was on of the first Nintendo games developed by with assistance of a western company; later on, he reprised as director on Star Fox 2, which wasn't released commercially at the time despite it being completed.
Soon thereafter he would direct classics such as Wave Race 64 and Animal Forest, both for the Nintendo 64, and the latter game's more successful GameCube iteration, Animal Crossing, which was the first in the series to make it outside of Japan. The development team quickly followed with a sequel on the Nintendo DS titled Animal Crossing: Wild World.
To launch the Wii, Nintendo assigned Eguchi and his team to develop a game to be released alongside the anticipated console. They conceived Wii Sports, which became so popular that it is currently the best selling game of all time. Wii Sports is a simple title that includes five games that effectively use the system's internal Mii program. The developers, hot on the success of Wii Sports, started development on three games including Wii Music, Animal Crossing: City Folk (Let's Go to the City in Europe and Australia), and Wii Sports Resort. Wii Music and City Folk were Nintendo's two big titles during the 2008 holiday season, and the company invested a lot of money in an attempt to replicate the success of Wii Fit, Mario Kart Wii, and Super Smash Bros. Brawl which were released earlier that year. Unfortunately, the games did not sell as well as anticipated. Wii Sports Resort, however, which was released a half a year later, proved much more successful, possibly due to its inclusion of the Wii MotionPlus accessory.
Katsuya Eguchi would later become the main producer of the Wii U console. Afterwards, upon his promotion to Deputy General Manager, he has the title of general producer or supervisor on various titles developed by EAD and EPD.
Games[]
- Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (1987) - Dungeon Design [note: uncredited]
- Famicom Grand Prix: F-1 Race (1987) - Designer
- Super Mario Bros. 3 (1988) - Course Design
- Super Mario World (1990) - Area Director
- Star Fox (1993) - Director
- Star Fox 2 (1995) - Director
- Wave Race 64 (1996) - Director
- Yoshi's Story (1997) - Course Designer
- Mario Artist: Talent Studio (2000) - Adviser
- Animal Crossing (2001) - Director [Note: Sequence Director and Script Director][1]
- Wave Race: Blue Storm (2001) - Original Wave Race Project Lead
- Animal Crossing e+ (2003) - Director [Note: Sequence Director and Script Director][1]
- Animal Crossing: Wild World (2005) - Producer
- Star Fox Command (2006) - Supervisor
- Wii Sports (2006) - Producer
- Wii Play (2006) - Producer
- Check Mii Out Channel (2007) - Producer
- Wii Music (2008) - Co-Producer
- Animal Crossing: City Folk (2008) - Producer
- Wii Sports Resort (2009) - Producer
- Animal Crossing: New Leaf (2012) - Producer
- Nintendo Land (2012) - Producer
- Wii Sports Club (2013) - Producer
- The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds (2013) - Supervisor
- The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask 3D (2015) - Senior Producer
- Splatoon (2015) - General Producer
- Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer (2015) - General Producer
- The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes (2015) - Supervisor
- The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD (2016) - Senior Producer
- Animal Crossing: New Leaf - Welcome amiibo (2016) - General Producer
- Tank Troopers (2016) - General Producer
- ARMS (2017) - General Producer
- Splatoon 2 (2017) - General Producer
- Octo Expansion (2018) - General Producer
- Starlink: Battle for Atlas (2018) - Producer
- Luigi's Mansion 3 (2019) - Project Management
- The Stretchers (2019) - Producer
- Animal Crossing: New Horizons (2020) - General Producer
- Good Job! (2020) - Producer
- Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition (2020) - Producer
- Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics (2020) - Producer
- Paper Mario: The Origami King (2020) - Project Management
- Kirby Fighters 2 (2020) - General Producer
- Part Time UFO (Switch) (2020) - General Producer
- Buddy Mission BOND (2021) - Producer
- WarioWare: Get It Together! (2021) - Project Management
- Xenoblade Chronicles 3 (2022) - Producer
- Future Redeemed (2023) - Producer
- Splatoon 3 (2022) - General Producer
- Expansion Pass (2023-2024) - General Producer
- Super Mario Bros. Wonder (2023) - Production Management
- WarioWare: Move It! (2023) - Project Management
- Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door (Nintendo Switch) (2024) - Project Management
- Luigi's Mansion 2 HD (2024) - Project Management
Special Thanks[]
- Super Smash Bros. Melee (2001) (Original Game Staff)
- Super Smash Bros. Brawl (2008) - Supervisor (Original Games)
- Pilotwings Resort (2011)
- Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U (2014) - Supervisor (Original Games)
- Dillon's Dead-Heat Breakers (2018)
- Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze (Switch) (2018)
- Luigi's Mansion (3DS) (2018)
Interviews[]
- Star Fox Development Interview (translated by Glitterberri)
- GDC 2006 (audio only)
- GDC 2014
Nintendo Online Magazine[]
Iwata Asks[]
Trivia[]
- Dylan Cuthbert, a coder of the original Star Fox, explained in an interview that Peppy Hare, a member of Team Star Fox, was based on Eguchi. This was later confirmed by Takaya Imamura, the orignal Star Fox character designer.