I feel like a lot of Nintendo fans dont really know much about Nintendo development or its staff, so with the new titles announced post direct, I think it would be cool to talk about it for a bit
For the ones who don’t know, Nintendo EPD is the division created from the merger between Nintendo EAD and Nintendo SPD, almost 10 years ago. Nintendo EAD mainly only developed games, while SPD developed its own games and produced/oversee titles published by Nintendo. With the merger, both functions are now done under Nintendo EPD and focused on one platform (outside of the few mobile titles).
Since 2015, Miyamoto stopped being a General Manager in EAD and Takahashi who was the General Manager of SPD became General Manager of Nintendo EPD. Miyamoto went to become fellow and have less involvement in games, something we saw happening during early 2010s already, with less and less games having Miyamoto as producer, to the point where miyamoto wasnt credited in any nintendo game between 2017 and 2023 outside of supervisor on mario&luigi and some special thanks. So this is how it is in their current structure for the division, which is generally how most japanese publishers who develop internally have their own main development division. In nintendo epd, development staff all circle around between the groups, with exceptions like managers, producers and directors
In total under EPD, there’s 11 groups with 4 groups focused in production of titles published by Nintendo, 6 focused on internal development and 1 doing both production and internal development together. below you can see all and the staff related to it
> General Manager – Shinya Takahashi
> Deputy General Managers – Katsuya Eguchi, Yoshiaki Koizumi, Keisuke Terasaki, Hisashi Nogami, Takayuki Shimamura
>Executive Officer – Takashi Tezuka, Yoshiaki Koizumi
> Senior Officer – Yoshio Sakamoto, Takashi Tezuka, Kensuke Tanabe, Eiji Aonuma
Then you have 11 internal groups at EPD, each responsible for a franchise while having their own manager and project leads:
> Nintendo EPD Production Group No. 2 (Production, planning and overseeing for third party developed titles)
Manager / Producer – Toyokazu Nonaka, Shinya Saito, Akira Kinashi
Project Leads – Tomohiro Yamamura, Yoshiaki Onishi, Nobuo Matsumiya, Genki Yokota
Series – Mario & Luigi, Mario Tennis, Mario Golf, Mario Party, Yoshi, Bayonetta, Fire Emblem, Pokémon, Kirby, Xenoblade
Recent Titles – Pokémon Legends: Arceus (gamefreak), Kirby and the Forgotten Land (Hal laboratory), Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes (Omega force), Xenoblade Chronicles 3 (Monolith soft), Fire Emblem Engage (Intelligent Systems), Bayonetta Origins (PlatinumGames), Advance Wars 1 + 2: Reboot Camps (Wayforward)
Current – Pikmin 1 +2 (NERD), Super Mario RPG (???)
> Nintendo EPD Production Group No. 3 (Internal development)
Manager / Producer – Eiji Aonuma, Daiki Iwamoto, Makoto Miyanaga
Project Leads – Hidemaro Fujibayashi
Series – The Legend of Zelda
Recent Titles – The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
> Nintendo EPD Production Group No. 4 (Internal development)
Manager / Producer – Kouichi Kawamoto, Takayuki Shimamura
Project Leads – Norihiro Ito, Tsubasa Sakaguchi, Naoki Masuda
Series – Brain Age, Miitopia, Big Brain Academy, Nintendo Labo, 1-2 Switch
Recent Titles – 1-2 Switch, Nintendo Labo, Ring Fit Adventure, Dr Kawashima’s Brain Training for Nintendo Switch (w/Indieszero), Jump Rope Challenge, Game Builder Garage, Big Brain Academy: Brain vs. Brain (w/Indieszero), Nintendo Switch Sports, Everybody 1-2 Switch (w/Ndcube)
> Nintendo EPD Production Group No. 5 (Internal development)
Manager / Producer – Hisashi Nogami, Aya Kyogoku
Project Leads – Aya Kyogoku, Yusuke Amano
Series – Animal Crossing, Splatoon
Recent Titles – Splatoon 2, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Splatoon 3
Current – Splatoon 3 updates and Expansion Pass
> Nintendo EPD Production Group No. 6 (Production, planning and overseeing for third party developed titles)
Manager / Producer – Kensuke Tanabe
Project Leads – Goro Abe, Akiya Sakamoto, Risa Tabata
Series – Metroid Prime, Donkey Kong Country, Luigi’s Mansion, WarioWare, Paper Mario
Recent Titles – Luigi’s Mansion 3, Paper Mario Origami King, WarioWare: Get It Together, Mario Strikers: Battle League, Metroid Prime Remastered
Current – Metroid Prime 4 (Retro studios), WarioWare: Move It! (Intelligent Systems), Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon Remastered (next level games?)
> Nintendo EPD Production Group No. 7 (Internal development; Production, planning and overseeing for third party developed titles)
Manager / Producer – Katsuya Yamano, Yoshio Sakamoto
Project Leads – Takehiko Hosokawa, Ryutaro Takahashi, Masami Yone
Series – Metroid (2D), Rhythm Heaven, Tomodachi Life
Recent Titles – Miitomo, Metroid: Samus Returns (developed w/ MercurySteam), Famicom Detective Club remake (made by MAGES), Metroid Dread (developed w/ MercurySteam)
> Nintendo EPD Production Group No. 8 (Internal development)
Manager / Producer – Koichi Hayashida
Project Leads – Kenta Motokura, Futoshi Shirai
Series – 3D Mario, NES Remix
Recent Titles – Super Mario Odyssey, Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker (w/NST), Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury (w/NST)
> Nintendo EPD Production Group No. 9 (Internal development)
Manager / Producer – Kosuke Yabuki
Project Leads – Masaaki Iwasaki, Kenta Sato, Kentaro Nishimura
Series – Mario Kart, ARMS, Nintendogs
Recent Titles – Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, ARMS, Mario Kart Tour
Current: Mario Kart Tour updates, Mario Kart 8 Booster Course Pass
> Nintendo EPD Production Group No. 10 (Internal development)
Manager / Producer – Hiroyuki Kimura
Project Leads – Shigefumi Hino, Yuji Kando
Series – Super Mario Bros. (2D), Pikmin
Recent Titles – New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe, Super Mario Maker 2, Pikmin 3 Deluxe (w/Eighting)
Current – Pikmin 4 (w/Eighting), Super Mario Bros. Wonder
> Nintendo EPD – Smart Device Production Group (Production, planning and overseeing for third party development)
Manager / Producer – Hideki Konno
Recent: Fire Emblem Heroes, Dragalia Lost, Dr. Mario World, Mario Kart Tour, Animal Crossing Pocket Camp
Current: Fire Emblem Heroes (Intelligent Systems), Mario Kart Tour (EPD9) and Animal Crossing Pocket Camp (EPD5, Ndcube) updates
Since 2017, Nintendo EPD by itself released from its internal groups 22 new titles for Switch, along 4 remasters, without counting releases from subsidiaries or second parties
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_EPD
by brzzcode
20 Comments
Every single title from Group 8 is a banger.
I wonder what group 7 is working on?
None of the games they made should have taken that long to develop they should have a new game by now.
Could you do a list for all the second party and subsidiary studios?
Looks like every group has some good highlights. Personally I’d say Group 4 has been the weakest, but they’ve still got Ring Fit and Game Builder Garage to brag about.
Very cool info, though. Appreciate the time you took to compile this
EPD3 must be the most reliably outstanding development studio around, possibly with Naughty Dog.
Such a shame EPD 5 dropped New Horizons like a hot potato. ACNH was a hastily made game, because Splatoon is their star child.
Group three has a great catalogue!
What a phenomenal well put together list. Thank you so much for the time and effort it must have taken for you to make this post!
This is a great list! Thankyou. Formatting is a little ugly but you’re doing the best you can with reddit unfortunately.
I know it’s on the nintendo wiki but do you know the source of the info on EPD6 working on WarioWare move it? Given it’s essentially a sequel to smooth moves, it feels like something EPD7 would be working on.
OP, please could you add some more paragraph spacing between teams and maybe bold the team names. This is really hard to read.
Miyamoto is almost like a movie executive producer where he is credited for doing absolutely nothing. Lol Similar to when Stan Lee was on all the Marvel movies before he passed.
Thanks for making this OP! I was actually looking this up after the last Direct myself (I wanted to see if Pikmin and 2D Mario were by the same team) and referencing about a dozen wiki pages and still not getting exactly the info I wanted.
The most interesting thing to me is Intelligent Systems series being split between groups 1, 2 and 6. And not even by series or genre. WarioWare, Fire Emblem, Advance Wars, and Paper Mario are all over the place between those groups.
Killer breakdown
I must have missed something. But which EPD group is involved with making mainline 3d mario games.
Thanks for the breakdown. I didn’t know employees move between all the different groups, that’s neat.
Interesting that the same group is able to make both Pikmin 4 and Mario Wonder for this year.
This is a great write up. Most people are unaware of how a big game developer like Nintendo is set up, as they’re usually pretty opaque.
One more wave in the Booster Course Pass and then what next for Group 9?
Also, you forgot Group 1.
>Miyamoto went to become fellow
……?
Fujibayashi deserves so much more respect. What he’s done with the Legend of Zelda series is amazing.