In a recent interview with Denfaminicogamer, the legendary video game developer Masahiro Sakurai apparently confirmed he is now semi-retired.
He elaborated on this, mentioning how he worked on the Super Smash Bros. series for around nine years between the 3DS/Wii U and Switch release, along with the DLC updates. Sakurai feels he’s got to draw the line somewhere, or else he’ll simply run out of time to live his own life.
Here’s the summary of Sakurai’s latest update, courtesy of a translation by PushDustin:
“Sakurai confirms that he is semi-retired. He is 52 after all. When Smash for 3DS / Wii U and Ultimate he spent 9 years in active development. Sakurai felt that if he is just continuously making games full time, his life will be over before he realizes it.”
Of course, this isn’t the first time we’ve heard Sakurai talk about his future now that Smash Ultimate is complete. Previously he’s mentioned how a new entry in the Smash series would be a massive undertaking.
Development on Super Smash Bros. Ultimate wrapped up not long after the reveal of the DLC fighter Sora in October last year. Although major updates have finished, Nintendo is still releasing amiibo for the game – with Kazuya and Sephiroth scheduled to arrive next month. These will be followed by Pyra and Mythra.
In case you missed it, Super Smash Bros.’ Masahiro Sakurai has a fantastic YouTube channel now where he shares all kinds of cool ideas and stories about games development. Example: in his latest video, he has shown off footage of Dragon King: The Fighting Game, a prototype fighting game that would pave the way for great things.
While news of the game’s existence is nothing new—it’s been reported on a few times, is known among serious Nintendo and Smash Bros. historians and some blurry old screenshots have circulated—we’ve never actually seen it in action before, so getting such a good look at it here (and from the source, no less!) is amazing.
Dragon King’s prototype—which dates back to 1996—was worked on by both Sakurai and Satoru Iwata while both were at HAL Laboratory, and as the video explains was pitched to Nintendo as a standalone game before eventually becoming the catalogue-spanning Smash Bros. series we know today.
You can instantly see how Smash evolved from this pitch for a “four-player free-for-all fighting game with no health bars”; while these are just blank coloured characters, not the Nintendo cameos we’re used to, almost everything else is Smash Bros. to the core, from the camera movements to the number of players to the damage percentage.
Perhaps most interesting, though, are his recollections about how the series came to be known for those cameos. Sakurai says that the idea of starting a new fighting game from scratch, and having to come up with 8-12 characters that would be unfamiliar to players, wasn’t great, so he managed to convince Nintendo to let him “borrow their most popular characters” instead, even if this move was wildly unpopular with the company’s suits at the time, who strongly opposed “the idea of having Nintendo’s characters beat each other up”.
G/O Media may get a commission
Mixed reality The Meta Quest Pro centers on working, creating, and collaborating in a virtual space.
You can check out Sakurai’s story, and the footage of Dragon King, below.
Masahiro Sakurai launched his very own YouTube earlier this week, and he’s already discussed a number of interesting subjects about game development. In his latest video, he talks about how frame rates work in video games.
He’s also included his own thoughts about frame rates in games – mentioning how 60 fps is “ideal” and 30 fps is “adequate”:
“60 fps is an ideal frame rate when possible, but 30 fps is a common standard…And 30fps is still more than adequate for playing games.”
Although The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is shown on-screen during his comment about 30 fps gaming, this 3D title is not always consistent and suffers dips in both handheld and portable mode during more heated moments.
Image: Nintendo
Nintendo’s first-party titles on Switch typically aim for 30 to 60 fps, but other consoles can hit 120 fps, and platforms like PC games go to 144 fps and beyond – provided they’ve got a supported monitor.
What’s your own thought about frame rates in video games? Would you like to one day see Nintendo release a system that can match the Xbox and PlayStation hardware in terms of fps? Leave your thoughts down below.
Did you know that back in 2006, Super Smash Bros. creator Masahiro Sakurai helped develop a Tamagotchi-like game where you raise virtual beetles on these smol LCD toys and send them off to fight other beetles over infrared connectivity a la Street Pass? It’s new news to me, and one of many interesting facts the storied game designer has shared on his new YouTube channel, Masahiro Sakurai on Creating Games. To be honest with y’all, I think he might be my fave YouTuber now.
Masahiro Sakurai may be most well-known as the creative genius behind the Kirby and Super Smash Bros. franchises, but he’s done a lotta work in the games industry since starting in the ‘90s. He directed his first game, Kirby’s Dream Land, at the age of 19. He wrote a weekly Famitsu column about games for nearly two decades. He even went independent for a bit in the mid-2000s, leading the design of the falling tile-match puzzle game Meteos before returning to Nintendo’s HAL Laboratory for some more Super Smash Bros. games. And up until earlier this week, Sakurai was posting daily screenshots from what may or may not be the crossover fighter’s final entry, only to announce he wouldn’t do that anymore and instead was focusing on a new project: A YouTube channel where he spills the tea on the ins and outs of game design. YouTuber Sakurai. Has a nice ring to it.
Read More:Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Director Stops Posting Daily Screens, Ending An Era
As YouTuber Sakurai put it in the first video on his channel, the goal of Masahiro Sakurai on Creating Games is to “try and help make games around the world a little more fun.” With his decades of expertise, he plans to dissect what “good” and “fun” could mean in game design, teaching aspiring developers and curious onlookers more about the medium through bite-sized lessons. Though there are only four videos on his channel right now—YouTuber Sakurai moves fast, y’all—the topics he aims tocover seem to be all-encompassing, ranging from how frame rate affects game feel to the ways distance determines risk in platformers. It sounds technical, but YouTuber Sakurai ensured that game development experience isn’t necessary to get enjoyment or glean insight from his channel because “keeping things simple” is the best for accessibility.
Consider the second video, Stop for Big Moments, which is all about “hit stops.” A hit stop is an in-game effect that, as the name suggests, stops the action when you get hit. You see it a lot in action games where you stagger a bit and the screen shakes after a blow, but hit stops are most acutely felt in something like Super Smash Bros. Ultimate when you deal a critical attack that sends your opponent careening off the screen. The purpose of hit stops is to make every blow in a game feel impactful and to translate to you, the player, the weight of the attack. Without them, combat can feel floaty and imprecise, lacking any significant heaviness or punch.
Nintendo
What I love about Masahiro Sakurai on Creating Games is YouTuber Sakurai’s demeanor. If you’ve watched any of the Super Smash Bros. livestreams he hosted, then you know the vibe here. It’s lowkey and personable, filled with tons of information delivered in a digestible format. He speaks clearly and plainly, and doesn’t spend too much time wading through game design jargon to teach concepts. In talking about hit stops, for example, he demonstrated several times how the effect changes a game’s feel with it activated and deactivated. What you get is a window into how developers make combat that’s both punchy and rewarding. I really feel like I learned something from YouTuber Sakurai. So, if you’ve ever wondered what makes combat in some games so “crunchy,” pay attention to the effectiveness of the hit stop.
G/O Media may get a commission
Up to 90% off
Humble Bundle’s Summer Sale
Game and Save Great news for PC gamers out there looking to save money and add more games to your backlog which you’ll eventually get to. Humble Bundle has kicked off its Summer Sale in which you can save up to 90% on games.
Read More:Smash Bros. Devs, You Did It, It’s Finished, Go Take A Break
While Masahiro Sakurai is reveling in the YouTuber life now, Nintendo is going through a tumultuous August. Earlier this month the company was accused of firing an employee for asking a question about unions at a meeting. A fire broke out at Nintendo’s headquarters in Kyoto this month as well, possibly sparked by a faulty device that was charging. Kotaku also spoke to multiple sources alleging that as Nintendo of America contractors, they experienced a “frat house” culture rife with sexual harassment and inappropriate behavior. Nintendo of America president Doug Bowser said the company is “actively investigating” the claims that have appeared in recent media coverage.
Masahiro Sakurai, the creator of games like Kirby and Super Smash Bros., has revealed his next big project: a YouTube channel. The gaming folk hero teased that he was working on something new earlier this week, and now you can super smash that like button and subscribe to his new channel, Masahiro Sakurai on Creating Games.
As of this writing, there are three videos: one that’s all about the channel, one covering what games Sakurai has worked on (like one of the DS greats, Meteos), and one diving deep about how to use in-game pauses for certain effects (like “hit stop” moments you might see in Smash when landing a punch).
Sakurai, of course, is no stranger to appearing on video; he’s been Nintendo’s primary Super Smash Bros. presenter for years, and consistently finds ways to make even the smallest details about new fighters extremely interesting. Now that he’s done with the mammoth project that was Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, it’s perhaps no surprise that he’s transitioning to a new video series on YouTube.
Sakurai says we shouldn’t expect him to start streaming (sadly) — instead, the videos will be focused on “topics like game development and what makes games fun,” he says in his “About This Channel” video. He’s aiming to keep the videos short, between two and five minutes long.
He’s already teasing that he’ll be able to show some Smash Bros. development builds and design documents that he’s written, so it seems as if we’ll get some rare behind-the-scenes peeks at big Nintendo games. Although Sakurai is running his videos by Nintendo, says the company “isn’t involved in this channel” and that the series is a personal project of his. He isn’t planning to include ads in his videos.
Unfortunately, even Sakurai has to prepare for potential problems that other YouTubers are on alert for. He says that if rights-holders aren’t happy with the footage he includes in his videos, “I’ll do what I can to set things right.” He also expressed some worry that because he’s uploading separate versions of each video in Japanese and English, that could run afoul of YouTube’s duplicate content policies and cause videos to be taken down.
But as you’d expect with any YouTuber trying to get a new series off the ground, Sakurai concludes his about video by asking viewers to hit the subscribe button. While he concedes that’s “a very YouTube thing of me to ask,” he says he won’t be asking again in future videos.
Personally? I couldn’t hit the subscribe button fast enough. I even turned on the notification bell. The videos he’s released so far are fantastic; I had never consciously thought about hit stop before, but now, I’ll be looking for it in every game I play.
After Ultimate, I was content to never ask Sakurai for anything ever again. Now, I’m eagerly waiting for his next video to drop.
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate director Masahiro Sakurai yesterday teased a new announcement, and today he’s revealed it’s his very own YouTube channel titled Masahiro Sakurai on Creating Games.
As the title suggests, this channel will be focused on game development and what exactly makes games fun to play. It will apparently cover a “variety of topics” related to this, and you can watch his first video right now (above). Sakurai has also uploaded some other content fans and aspiring developers can enjoy.
Sakurai goes onto mention how he plans to upload videos in both Japanese and English, and will aim to provide real game footage whenever possible. Just to be cautious though, he may focus on classic game footage rather than more recent stuff.
He’s also been given the approval by Nintendo to show off Smash Bros. development builds and design documents he’s written – so Smash fans can look forward to that. And just to be clear, Sakurai explained how “Nintendo isn’t involved in this channel” and it is his own personal project.
He’s also not looking to profit from it, so there won’t be any advertising, apparently. And he will be keeping things in most videos “short and sweet” as he has to pay his video editors and translators. He also won’t regularly be asking viewers to Like, Subscribe or hit the notification bell.
Here are some of the other videos Sakurai has uploaded to his YouTube channel so far. The first is a showreel of his creative works – even teasing his next work following Smash Ultimate as “TBD”, and the second video is about design specifics:
What do you think of this new YouTube Channel by Sakurai? Will you be subscribing? Leave a comment down below.
When he’s not making huge games like Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, video game director Masahiro Sakurai is actually playing them. Yes, as you’ve likely already seen before, he’s got an extensive collection of consoles and games (new and old).
In a new post on social media, it seems Sakurai has updated his gaming space. As you can see, all the consoles are neatly ordered – with the Switch on the second shelf, and the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X on top. One thing a lot of his fans also noticed is that the Switch dock is placed on its side.
We’re not too sure about the close proximity of the PlayStation and Xbox, either – but to be fair he’s running an open roof at the very top. Here’s a rough translation of what he had to say about his new setup, courtesy of Google translate:
“I had a made-to-order game machine shelf made. For waste heat, the top plate and the back are removed.When playing, the door is left open. The wiring is passed straight through the hole in the center behind the shelf board. The bottom 2 rows are for controllers and such. The power supply on the back can be turned off individually.”
Update: Sakurai has shared a few other images, noting how he got two of these shelves. And in addition to this, another tweet discusses the Switch on its side. He says it’s not recommended by the manufacturer. Here’s exactly what he had to say:
“There are two of these game shelves…For living room and private room (work room). This door is opaque.”
“There was a reaction to the Switch dock horizontal placement …It’s not recommended by the manufacturer, so do it at your own risk. This is just my personal experience, but I had no problems using it until I cleared Xenoblade Chronicles 3.”
In recent months, Sakurai has also shown off his personal game library – featuring all sorts of retro titles:
What do you think of Sakurai’s new setup? How about the sideways Switch dock? Leave a comment below.
As you probably know by now, Nintendo is discontinuing the 3DS and Wii U eShop as of 28th March 2023. And later this month on 29th August, you’ll no longer be able to add eShop card funds (aka points) to accounts.
This is happening worldwide, and as a result – Nintendo fans around the globe are grabbing certain digital titles before the deadline. Even the Super Smash Bros. director Masahiro Sakurai is making the most of these digital shops while he still can.
Here’s a rough translation of his most recent social media post (via Google translate) – essentially reminding fellow 3DS and Wii U users of the closure:
“In a little over two weeks, you won’t be able to add points to 3DS and Wii U…I’m patrolling the e-shop thinking it’s my last chance. Because of the touch panel, there are probably many things that won’t be ported to other models.”
Unfortunately, he didn’t specify if he made any purchases, but as he noted – a lot of the games using these systems’ touch screens, might not necessarily get ported to other platforms in the future. We can’t imagine he is thrilled about older Super Smash Bros. DLC being retired, either.
The 3DS and Wii U eShops aren’t the only things coming to an end – with Sakurai announcing earlier this month that he was almost out of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate screenshots.
You can learn more about the upcoming eShop closures in some of our previous posts. It’s worth noting the sales of Fire Emblem Fates will end on 28th February 2023 and its DLC is available until 27th March 2023.
Learn more about Nintendo’s 3DS & Wii U eShop closure:
Are you making the most of your time with these eShops, like Sakurai is? Any specific games you’ll be picking up before it’s too late? How do you feel about the whole closure at this point? Leave your thoughts down below.
Super Smash Bros. creator Masahiro Sakurai is known for sometimes playing two characters in Smash Bros. simultaneously, against himself. He’s done this multiple times before, including in a Nintendo Direct to show off Banjo and Kazooie. But while this is an admittedly goofy way to play Smash, Sakurai hinted recently that he might also play other games like this, too. Like It Takes Two, for example.
When It Takes Two won Game of the Year at The Game Awards, Sakurai posted on his Twitter, suggesting it might be possible to play It Takes Two by oneself, with two controllers. The co-op game has some pretty tricky coordinated puzzling and boss fights, but given how complex Smash can be (especially when you’re, you know, the creator of the series trying to look pristine on a Nintendo Direct), it seems entirely possible Sakurai managed it.
The Game Award 2021を獲得した『It Takes Two』。 ふたり専用ゲームであることが最大の障壁だけど、ひとりでできなくもない…かも? pic.twitter.com/xb2WtE8Fvn
— 桜井 政博 / Masahiro Sakurai (@Sora_Sakurai) December 11, 2021
Have you played It Takes Two?
He even included two different configurations, in a reference to his own prior comments about how he used to play with two controllers simultaneously on GameCube by stacking them vertically. Sadly, he can’t do that anymore on the Switch Pro Controller without accidentally pressing L and R.
Sadly, Sakurai does not show his hand as to whether or not he actually played or intends to play It Takes Two by himself. Hopefully he can find a buddy to play it through with if not, since It Takes Two is a “spectacular co-op adventure that lays down a path of great gameplay ideas and uses it to play a giddy game of hopscotch” (or at least, we thought it was in our review).
Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.
Masahiro Sakurai was able to complete Super Smash Bros. Ultimate this year, but from here on out, it’s not clear what’s next.
Although he’s apparently not thinking about a new Smash Bros. entry right now, that doesn’t mean he’ll rule one out. He’s also not even sure about his future in video game development, but would likely remain within the industry in some way or form.
Now, in a more recent interview with 4Gamer, Sakurai has shared a bit of an update – advising fans to forget about him for a while (in other words – stop asking what’s next), because if he does do anything else, whatever it is will likely take some time.
Here’s the full quote, courtesy of a translation by Kody Nokolo:
“Doing anything else is going to take some time, so it’s probably best to forget about me for a while.”
While this might worry some, it’s not the first time we’ve heard something like this from a Japanese developer. When Platinum’s Hideki Kamiya was getting a large volume of questions about Bayonetta 3 he also told fans to just forget about it.
Sakurai is rather active on social media, so if you are curious to see what he’s up to, you can always visit his Twitter page. In recent times he purchased an Xbox Series X and has also shown interest in the GOTY title, It Takes Two.
What would you like to see next from Sakurai? A new game, another Smash, something else? Comment below.
