Designers & Composers

A deck by Dario Iyer · 11 cards

The artists behind the games.

Shigeru Miyamoto

Shigeru Miyamoto is a Japanese video game designer, producer, game director and filmmaker at Nintendo, where he has served as one of its representative directors as an executive since 2002. Widely regarded as one of the most accomplished and influential designers in video games, he is the creator of some of the most acclaimed and best-selling game franchises of all time, including Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Donkey Kong, Star Fox and Pikmin. More than 1 billion copies of games featuring franchises created by Miyamoto have been sold.

Masahiro Sakurai

Masahiro Sakurai is a Japanese video game director and game designer best known as the creator of the Kirby and Super Smash Bros. series. Apart from his work on those series, he also led the design of Meteos in 2005 and directed Kid Icarus: Uprising in 2012.

Yoshiaki Koizumi

Yoshiaki Koizumi is a Japanese video game designer, director, producer, and business executive. He is a senior executive officer at Nintendo and a senior general manager at Nintendo EPD, where he is known for his work within their Mario and The Legend of Zelda series, and as the General Producer of the Nintendo Switch. In 2009, he was chosen by IGN as one of the top 100 game creators of all time. Koizumi is also on the board of directors of Nintendo Pictures.

Hirokazu Tanaka

Hirokazu "Hip" Tanaka , also known as Chip Tanaka, is a Japanese musician, composer, sound designer, and executive who pioneered chiptune music. He is best known as one of Nintendo's in-house composers during the 8- and 16-bit era of video games. Tanaka also had a role in designing and programming the Famicom and Game Boy audio hardware, along with the NES Zapper, Game Boy Camera, and Game Boy Printer.

Koji Kondo

Koji Kondo is a Japanese composer and senior executive at the video game company Nintendo. He is best known for his contributions for the Super Mario and The Legend of Zelda series, with his Super Mario Bros. theme being the first piece of music from a video game included in the American National Recording Registry. Kondo was hired by Nintendo in 1984 as its first dedicated composer and is currently a Senior Officer at its Entertainment Planning & Development division.

Gunpei Yokoi

Gunpei Yokoi , sometimes transliterated as Gumpei Yokoi, was a Japanese toy maker and video game designer. As a long-time Nintendo employee, he was best known as the original designer of several notable Nintendo products, including the Ultra Hand toy, the Game & Watch and Game Boy handheld game systems, as well as the producer of a few critically acclaimed franchises such as Metroid and Kid Icarus. The modern Nintendo philosophy of focusing on interactive gameplay over cutting-edge technology was espoused by Yokoi.

Mahito Yokota

Mahito Yokota (横田真人, Yokota Mahito) is a Japanese music composer and orchestrator who works for the video game development company Nintendo. He is most known for his collaborations with Koji Kondo in the Super Mario Galaxy series, along with Super Mario 3D World. Yokota served as an audio director at Koei prior to joining Nintendo in 2003.

Takashi Tezuka

Takashi Tezuka , nicknamed Ten Ten, is a Japanese video game designer and gaming company executive. Since 1984, he has directed, produced, or supervised development of numerous games released by Nintendo. He is currently the executive officer of their board of directors, and senior officer of their Entertainment Planning & Development division. He is set to retire from his position on the company's board on June 26, 2026.

Hideki Konno

Hideki Konno is a video game director, game designer and producer who worked for Nintendo for nearly 40 years.

Kensuke Tanabe

Kensuke Tanabe is a Japanese former video game producer and designer who has worked for Nintendo since 1986.

Eiji Aonuma

Eiji Aonuma is a Japanese video game designer, director, and producer at Nintendo. He is a senior officer within their Nintendo EPD division and serves as the producer of the Legend of Zelda franchise.