Takashi Tezuka

Takashi Tezuka (手塚 卓志, Tezuka Takashi; born November 17, 1960), nicknamed Ten Ten, is a Japanese video game designer and gaming company executive. Since 1984, he has directed, produced, or supervised development of numerous games released by Nintendo. He is now executive officer of their board of directors, and senior officer of their Entertainment Planning & Development division.

Tezuka assisted designer Shigeru Miyamoto on the platformer Super Mario Bros. (1985) for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). The game was incredibly innovative and influential to the medium; it began the Super Mario game series, and revived the North American gaming industry after it had suffered a recession in 1983. Tezuka wrote for and helped Miyamoto design the action-adventure game The Legend of Zelda (1986), which began the Zelda series. The two have had a creative partnership on many projects in the four decades since.

While directing Super Mario Bros. 3 (1988) for the NES and Super Mario World (1991) for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), Tezuka co-designed the dinosaur character Yoshi, who became a staple of the Mario and Yoshi series. He then directed The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (1991) for the SNES, The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (1993) for the Game Boy, and Yoshi's Island (1995) for the SNES. His last game design credit was for Super Mario 64 (1996) for the Nintendo 64.

Tezuka has since worked in managerial roles on games, rather than as a hands-on designer. Such titles include Animal Crossing (2001) for the 64DD and GameCube, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (2002) for the GameCube, Super Mario Galaxy 2 (2010) for the Wii, and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (2017) for the Wii U and Nintendo Switch. All the aforementioned titles are considered some of the best, most innovative, or most influential games ever released.