Profile: Yoshiaki Koizumi

In 2003, Koizumi began working out of Nintendo's new Tokyo offices. EAD Tokyo consisted of several experienced staff that had moved down from Kyoto, but it also took in an influx of new staff from around the city. The end result was a young team, full of energy and enthusiasm, with several experienced staff carefully guiding them.

Koizumi began drafting an idea for a new game: Donkey Kong Jungle Beat. This game, despite having three-dimensional graphics, immediately solved the issues that had been encountered with Super Mario Sunshine. The gameplay unfolded on a two-dimensional plane, which left the designers to concentrate purely on level design and user interaction.

It was in the latter area that Jungle Beat was different than anything Nintendo had produced before; it utilized the GameCube's bongo drum controller for character movement. Players had to strike the drums to make Donkey Kong run left or right and to jump. Donkey Kong jumped by hitting both drums simultaneously and he attacked enemies by clapping (which was interpreted by an in-built microphone).

There were several areas where Jungle Beat was different. First of all, the game essentially contained two "modes" of play: most gameplay involved a side-on camera view with Donkey Kong navigating a lush, vivid world full of traps and obstacles. Additionally, when players struck certain enemies by clapping, the game would move to a different "combat view", where the bongo controls became dedicated entirely to combat rather than movement. This system was known as "contextual binding" and it allowed the game to feature multiple actions using essentially three buttons.

As well as the raw gameplay innovations, Jungle Beat featured an "over the top" style that (according to Koizumi) deliberately encouraged players to hit things.

Donkey Kong Jungle Beat was a game that allowed Koizumi to get back to his core ideas about ease of play and overall accessibility. The game managed to feel fresh and new while simultaneously being incredibly easy for anyone — veteran gamer or not — to get into. Furthermore, Koizumi felt that Jungle Beat was fun to watch; families often commented that watching each other play the game was almost as fun as being the player. Jungle Beat exemplified many of Koizumi's deeply-held philosophies about how an ideal game should be designed.

At the end of the project, the EAD Tokyo team decided that one of their main goals was to positively engage entire families with their games. It was not just about accessibility for the player, it was also about making the console more acceptable to the entire family.


Yoshiaki Koizumi had learned many lessons at this point, with Super Mario Sunshine and Donkey Kong Jungle Beat either confirming or confronting his key ideas about game design. This experience led Koizumi and his team into a new era, as both a revolutionary console (and perhaps an equally revolutionary new software project) appeared on the horizon.


Having just completed Super Mario Sunshine and Donkey Kong Jungle Beat, Koizumi and his team were looking for the next challenge. When the team began working with GameCube's successor - the Wii - they decided to attempt another Mario title.

Both Koizumi and Miyamoto wanted to incorporate recent lessons into their next project (originally dubbed "Super Mario Revolutions"). With Koizumi's two previous projects, he had attempted to tackle the ever-present issues of camera control and limitations with 3D environment design.

It was at this point that both Koizumi and Miyamoto agreed on a single proposal: spherical worlds.

Spherical worlds were not new to Nintendo. When Miyamoto had revealed several technical demonstrations for GameCube years earlier, he had unveiled the initial concept for spherical environments. At that time the demo was not planned for a specific game, but like many Nintendo experiments, it was revisited years later and utilized in an actual project.

On the surface, spherical worlds solved a number of problems. For one thing, these environments had no real end; Mario could continue running around endlessly and never hit a wall. Koizumi recently pointed out that no matter how large you make a game world, the player will eventually hit an "invisible wall", which will interfere with gameplay.

In addition, spherical worlds would also theoretically solve problematic cameras. With a spherical world, it would be much easier to place the camera in a position where it could always see the player and provide the ideal angle, without the need for the player to constantly intervene. A further benefit was that Mario would be able to walk upside down, on walls or on any side of the planet without the player becoming disoriented; the character would essentially remain in the middle of the screen no matter what, avoiding jarring camera angle changes. It was also considered that this assisted with motion sickness problems in some players.

Koizumi and team also incorporated a two player mode into the game, which hadn't been seen since the SNES Mario titles. Although Koizumi considered the option of allowing two players to control their own characters at once, he believed that this would ultimately be too difficult to implement - especially if the players decided to run in opposite directions.

Instead, a co-operative system was included, which allowed the second player to pick up a Wii Remote and assist (or hinder) the first player. Koizumi felt that this system would encourage family members to join in on the game, even if they were not directly controlling Mario.

As with past games, Koizumi was keen to incorporate story elements. Mario titles in particular were known for being light on story and Koizumi felt that including any story in particular would be frowned upon by Miyamoto. His solution was to include an in-game story book that players could access at their leisure. This way, if they wanted story they could choose to follow it or alternatively, they could simply play the game and avoid its story almost entirely.

Super Mario Galaxy also further cemented the working relationship between Yoshiaki Koizumi and Shigeru Miyamoto. Koizumi, as the game's director, was responsible for coming up with the primary solutions and the "broad strokes" of the game's design. Miyamoto was someone Koizumi could go to for approval of specific ideas or for general advice. Miyamoto also regularly provided feedback to Koizumi and his team.

Koizumi, perhaps more than most EAD designers, had to become fully acquainted with Miyamoto's style of working. Miyamoto often confused staff in his emails, either because his comments were cryptic and unspecific or because they lacked context. Koizumi was regularly in the position of clarifying Miyamoto's thoughts to his team, or correctly interpreting the meaning of his messages. Moreover, Miyamoto rarely offered outright solutions or direct suggestions to Koizumi and team; instead, he would make a suggestion or simply ask a vague question. The idea, Koizumi believed, was to encourage the team to find their own solutions without needing to be told specific details.


Super Mario Galaxy differed from its 3D predecessors in one other important way: it was, to some degree, more linear. Rather than dropping Mario into an enormous world and including multiple stars in the same general space, Super Mario Galaxy adopted a more "modular" design. Koizumi felt that it would be easier to incorporate multiple flight paths, which would distinctly separate each particular goal. In this way, the player can continually re-visit a world without frequently traversing the same landscape to reach new goals.

Upon release, Super Mario Galaxy was hailed by many as not only the greatest Wii title, but also the greatest 3D platformer of all time. Praise was almost universal for the game and the sales reflected it.

Yoshiaki Koizumi can rightly feel proud for having not only matched Mario fans' astronomically high expectations, but for largely exceeding them. He has succeeded in applying more than a decade of experience and delivering a game that has already earned legendary status among Nintendo fans around the globe.

At the time of publication, Yoshiaki Koizumi is still very much in the early stages of his career. There is some suggestion that Koizumi may become Miyamoto's successor when he eventually retires; certainly, Koizumi has worked closely with Miyamoto for many years and has gained much experience with this style of development. Koizumi has also firmly claimed his stake in videogame history by becoming known as one of the most bold and talented designers within Nintendo's famed EAD group.

As Yoshiaki Koizumi's bright future has yet to be written, it would be appropriate to conclude with a quote from the man himself. Koizumi made these closing remarks at the recent Montreal Game Summit:



Thank you to Famitsu, Nintendo Power, Montreal Game Summit, Gamasutra, Wired Magazine, Miyamoto Shrine and Nintendo Co, Ltd.