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Toshihiko Nakago

Japanese video game programmer

Toshihiko Nakago (Japanese: 中郷 俊彦, Hepburn: Nakagō Toshihiko) is a Japanese video game programmer and the president of Systems Research and Development (SRD), a programming studio that has worked on Nintendo titles for nearly four decades. He is best known as the lead programmer of the original Super Mario Bros.2

From Wikipedia’s article on Toshihiko Nakago (this version), CC BY-SA 4.0.

Born 1957.1

About

(1985) and The Legend of Zelda (1986) for the Nintendo Entertainment System.

From Wikipedia’s article on Toshihiko Nakago, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.2

Companies

Career

Occupation: video game developer, video game director.4

  • Date not recordedChair, SRD3

SRD was founded in 1979 and initially specialised in computer-aided design (CAD) software. The studio began working with Nintendo in 1983, when it helped port the arcade game Donkey Kong to the company's Famicom/NES platform, drawing on its expertise with the 6502 microprocessor.

After working on the Donkey Kong ports, Nakago and SRD collaborated with designer Shigeru Miyamoto on Excitebike, their first original Famicom title. Nakago went on to serve as lead programmer for Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda, working alongside Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka. Former Nintendo president Satoru Iwata described the three as a long-standing creative core within the company.

Over subsequent decades Nakago's role evolved from programmer to programming director, supervisor and adviser across numerous Mario and Zelda titles, while remaining president of SRD rather than a direct Nintendo employee.

On 1 April 2022, Nintendo acquired SRD, making it a wholly owned subsidiary; Nakago continued to lead the studio. SRD ultimately contributed to roughly one hundred Nintendo games, including most of The Legend of Zelda series and the Super Mario and Animal Crossing franchises.

From Wikipedia’s article on Toshihiko Nakago (this version), CC BY-SA 4.0.

Personal life

  • Born1957, Kyoto Prefecture5
  • CitizenshipJapan6

Sources

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    WikidataSRD, Chair