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.

Biography

Early life Koizumi was born in Mishima, Shizuoka on April 29, 1968. He played his first video game, Super Mario Bros. 2, at the age of 21 when he borrowed a friend's Family Computer console. A graduate from the Visual Concept Planning Department of Osaka University of Arts, Koizumi studied film, drama, animation and, to a lesser extent, storyboarding. He had originally intended to become a film director but applied at Nintendo instead to pursue his goal of creating a kind of drama only experienced in video games. The company's close proximity to his university also played a role in his career choice. Koizumi later experimented with a polygonal, side-scrolling remake of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. Developed for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, the prototype was based on chanbara action, a type of Japanese sword fighting. With Super Mario 64, Koizumi became assistant director and animated the 3D models, among others working on Mario's swimming movements in cooperation with director Shigeru Miyamoto.

While developing Super Mario 64, Nintendo's employees devised rough concepts of a three-dimensional The Legend of Zelda game with a bigger focus on puzzles and less pronounced action elements. Koizumi wrote several notes on sword battles and combat with multiple opponents. When he joined Toru Osawa and Jin Ikeda, he was the third staff member to work on the game that would become The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Koizumi consulted his earlier notes and tried to inject leftover ideas from Super Mario 64 into this new Zelda installment. Koizumi replaced the simple triangle the team had implemented to mark the player's focus with a fairy that would change colors based on the friendly or hostile nature of the Z target. Furthermore, he was in charge of the player character Link and designed other characters such as the horse Epona. He also worked on the 3D environments, the camera system, the items and some of the event design, such as the scenes where the player overhears the conversations of other characters.

Following Ocarina of Time, Koizumi was designing a "cops and robbers"-style board game that had the player catch a criminal over the course of a week in-game, or roughly equivalent to an hour in real time. However, he was pulled off the project and asked to help develop the sequel to Ocarina of Time, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask. Koizumi carried over his "cops and robbers" idea with the time limit and expanded it into a world threatened by a falling moon after he had daydreamed about such a scenario. The concept was corroborated by Miyamoto's wish to have a "compact" Zelda that could be played over and over again, and the ideas eventually evolved into a system with a three-day time loop. Koizumi was again placed in charge of the game's player characters. The game's side-scrolling nature sprang from Koizumi's attempt to overcome problems with complex camera controls in 3D titles. These efforts continued in his next title, Super Mario Galaxy. The game's spherical levels eliminated the possibility of the player getting lost or the need for adjusting the camera when reaching the end of a flat surface. Koizumi directed Super Mario Galaxy and was heavily involved in the creation of its story, deciding on the inclusion of the optional fairytale book that tells the characters' backstory. Koizumi also served as General Producer of Nintendo's 2017 video game console, the Nintendo Switch. He alongside Shinya Takahashi also succeeded Satoru Iwata as the host of the Nintendo Direct video presentations since 2017, and has been doing so since the live streamed Nintendo Switch Presentation, which took place on January 12, 2017.

Koizumi was part of the board of directors of Nintendo's subsidiary 1-UP Studio as one of its representative directors from 2013 to 2023. In October 2022, he joined the board of directors of Nintendo Pictures.

In 2023, Koizumi was promoted from Deputy General Manager to Senior General Manager at Nintendo EPD division after almost 10 years in the position, below only Executive General Manager Shinya Takahashi who also was promoted at the same time.

Game design quote=If you think about games only as a thing that you interact with, you're missing the possibility of immersion. The inspirations that I tend to draw on for that all come from real life itself. Hiking on a mountain and seeing a cave and thinking about what's inside – it's that sense of wonder and excitement I want players to feel. — Koizumi on his game design philosophy

Super Mario Sunshine Director The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker Assistant director

Donkey Kong Jungle Beat Director

Super Mario Galaxy Director, game design, story

Flipnote Studio

Super Mario Galaxy 2

Super Mario 3D Land

Flipnote Studio 3D Super Mario 3D World NES Remix

NES Remix 2

The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask 3D Supervisor

Super Mario Odyssey

The Stretchers Dr Kawashima's Brain Training for Nintendo Switch

Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury 2025 Super Mario Galaxy + Super Mario Galaxy 2

Star Fox Producer Xenoblade Chronicles 2 - Nintendo Switch 2 Edition Senior producer