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Shigesato Itoi (born November 10, 1948) is a prominent Japanese copywriter, and the head of Hobonichi Co., Ltd. and Ape, Inc. Among the many jobs he has done during his career, he is best known for being the creator of the Mother series.

History[]

In March 1989, Itoi established the company Ape, Inc. as a venue for external developers to help make games for Nintendo. Among the projects Ape worked on were included the original Mother and Mother 2 (known as EarthBound in the west), the latter of which would also receive programming assistance from HAL Laboratory. Itoi acted as the main director of those two titles and wrote all the scenario. He would also develop his own bass-fishing game with Nintendo. With the birth of the Pokémon series, Ape would eventually become Creatures Inc. under Tsunekazu Ishihara.

Itoi was also involved in the creation of EarthBound 64 as the intended third entry in the series; however, due to various technical problems and delays the game was eventually canceled. Despite this, the project was repurposed for the Game Boy Advance and was finally released as Mother 3 in 2006, being developed by Brownie Brown.

After his work on Mother 3, Itoi announced that he was done with the Mother franchise. Despite this, he still has a good relationship with Nintendo, and has appeared as co-host on various interviews like Iwata Asks. He also runs a website known as "Hobo Nikkan Itoi Shinbun" (Almost Daily Itoi News).

In 2019, Itoi and Hobonichi released in Japan Ask Iwata: Words of Wisdom, a biographical book about the tenure of the late Satoru Iwata as president of Nintendo. This book was later published in other countries in 2021.

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