Masahiro Sakurai

**Masahiro Sakurai** (桜井 政博, *Sakurai Masahiro*, born August 3, 1970) 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. Formerly an employee of HAL Laboratory, he founded Sora Ltd. in 2005, a company he still leads. He is also an author of a weekly column for *Famitsu* magazine, and has done voice acting work in some of his games.

Masahiro Sakurai was born on August 3, 1970, in Musashimurayama, Tokyo, Japan. One of Sakurai's earliest experiences in the video game industry began when he worked for HAL Laboratory, where he created the character Kirby at age 19 and directed his first title, *Kirby's Dream Land*.[1] Sakurai left HAL on August 5, 2003, after growing tired of the sequelization passively forced by HAL, ending his work on the *Kirby* series. "It was tough for me to see that every time I made a new game, people automatically assumed that a sequel was coming," Sakurai commented, in an interview with Nintendo Dream, two weeks after he resigned from HAL. He explained that, "even if it's a sequel, lots of people have to give their all to make a game, but some people think the sequel process happens naturally".

Soon after, Sakurai began working on a project with Q Entertainment, along with Tetsuya Mizuguchi. This collaboration resulted in *Meteos* in 2005, a puzzle game for the Nintendo DS. On September 30, 2005, Sakurai announced that he had formed his own company, Sora.[2] Two titles were announced to be in development but no information on the titles had been divulged. As for the future of the *Super Smash Bros.* series, Nintendo and HAL Laboratory's President Satoru Iwata, during Nintendo's E3 2005 press conference, promised an online iteration of the game would come to Nintendo's video game console Wii.

In issue #885 of *Famitsu* magazine, Sakurai revealed that he would be serving as a director and game designer on *Super Smash Bros. Brawl* for the Wii. *Super Smash Bros. Brawl* was released in 2008, after personnel borrowed from 19 different developer studios assisted in development.[3] Sakurai had been updating daily the *Super Smash Bros Brawl* website called the Smash Bros. Dojo. Starting a year previous the release, he revealed *Brawl* secrets and gameplay content through the site. The Smash Bros. Dojo had regular updates from May 22, 2007 to April 14, 2008.

On the final day of updates, it was revealed that Sakurai provided the voice for King Dedede in *Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards* as well as Dedede in *Super Smash Bros. Brawl*. He and his company, Sora Ltd. alongside Nintendo, started a first-party studio, Project Sora, which was 72% owned by Nintendo and 28% owned by Sora Ltd. It was revealed at E3 2010 that Sakurai and Project Sora were working on *Kid Icarus: Uprising* for the Nintendo 3DS. Project Sora was closed and ended development on June 30, 2012.[4] At E3 2011, Nintendo announced that Sakurai was working on *Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS* and *Wii U*. Sakurai began development of the title upon the release of *Kid Icarus: Uprising* in March 2012.[5]

In February 2013, Sakurai was diagnosed with calcific tendinitis near his right shoulder, which caused him substantial pain whenever he moved his arm. He mentioned that this could effectively slow down his work, as he does some of his game testing himself.[6] Sakurai's wife, Michiko, has worked on the graphical user interface for many of his games, including *Kirby Air Ride*, *Meteos*, and the *Super Smash Bros.* series.[*citation needed*]

In a January 2015 column in *Weekly Famitsu*, Sakurai alluded to the possibility of retirement, expressing doubt that he would be able to continue making games if his career continued to be as stressful as it was.[7] In December 2015, Sakurai once again stated that he was not sure if there would be another game in the *Smash Bros.* series,[8] but on March 8, 2018, *Super Smash Bros. Ultimate* was announced during a Nintendo Direct and was released for the Nintendo Switch in December 2018.[9]