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With the arcade market dwindling, Nintendo R&D1's former focus, the department concentrated most of their software development resources on the emerging handheld video game console market, primarily thanks to the worldwide success of Nintendo's Game Boy. Nintendo also drafted a couple of key graphic designers to the department including Takashi Tezuka and Kenji Miki.

Imanishi appointed Hiroshi Ikeda, a former anime director at Toei Animation, as general manager of the newly created department, and Miyamoto as its chief producer, who would later become one of the most recognized video game developers in the world. 4 Department (commonly abbreviated to Nintendo R&D4), as a new development department dedicated to developing video game titles for dedicated consoles, complementing the other three existing departments in the Nintendo Manufacturing Division, green-lit by then-Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi. The success of Shigeru Miyamoto's Donkey Kong arcade game was a deciding factor in the creation of Nintendo R&D4.Īround 1983/1984, in the wake of Donkey Kong's commercial success, a game designed by Shigeru Miyamoto, Hiroshi Imanishi oversaw the creation of Research & Development No. The department was later consolidated into a division and separated into three groups, Nintendo R&D1, R&D2 and R&D3.ġ980–1989: Creation as Research & Development 4 In 1972, the department was renamed to Research & Development Department it had about 20 employees. Among these new designers were Makoto Kano, who went on to design various Game & Watch games, and Shigeru Miyamoto, who would create various Nintendo franchises. Several designers were hired to work under the Creative Department, which, at the time, was the only game development department within Nintendo.


Nintendo EAD was best known for its work on games in the Donkey Kong, Mario, The Legend of Zelda, F-Zero, Star Fox, Animal Crossing, Pikmin and Wii series.įollowing a large company restructuring after the death of company president Satoru Iwata, the division merged with Nintendo's Software Planning & Development division in September 2015, becoming Nintendo Entertainment Planning & Development. Both served as managers of the EARD studios and were credited in every game developed by the division, with varying degrees of involvement.

It was preceded by the Creative Department, a team of designers with backgrounds in art responsible for many different tasks, to which Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka originally belonged. Nintendo Entertainment Analysis & Development Division, commonly abbreviated as Nintendo EAD and formerly known as Nintendo Research & Development No.4 Department, was the largest software development division within the Japanese video game company Nintendo.
