Takashi Tezuka reflects on career, will remain producer at Nintendo

Nintendo held its annual shareholders meeting today, and while there’s always a lot of serious questions asked at these things, there’s also a few “fun” ones. We normally wait for the full translation because that’s the official record, but this one was clear enough.

Although it was announced last month that Takashi Tezuka was retiring from Nintendo, today, when asked about his retirement by a shareholder at the meeting, he revealed that he was only retiring from his role as an executive officer and will remain at the company as a producer on games.

The answer comes from trusted scribe of Nintendo investor meetings on Twitter, NStyles, and has been machine translated.

I will be stepping down upon the expiration of my term. Looking back on these 42 years, I feel that “it was a fun job.”

We used to create our own games from scratch—games you couldn’t find in toy stores. Now that the company has grown on a large scale, there’s the joy of creating together with many people.

With new technologies like 3D, stereoscopic imaging, and motion controls, it was a joy for me as an engineer. Working at Nintendo means developing and delivering products that bring joy to people around the world—it’s something the entire company thinks about and creates with flexibility. I’m truly glad I worked for this company.I will continue to be involved as a production producer. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to say a few words.

The room is said to then erupted into applause. We’ll have the full transcription from Nintendo when they release it, there’s a lot of good stuff in there.