Mario Kart Series Veteran Hideki Konno Retires After Almost 40 Years at Nintendo

It has precocious been revealed that Nintendo seasoned Hideki Konno retired from the institution past summertime aft astir 40 years.

Joining Nintendo successful 1986, Konno shaped galore of the Japanese crippled company’s large series. He worked arsenic adjunct manager connected Super Mario Bros. 2 and 3, arsenic good arsenic designing the games’ levels and characters. Later, arsenic a director, helium helmed games including Yoshi's Island, the SNES mentation of SimCity, and Luigi’s Mansion connected the GameCube.

However, Konno is astir apt champion known for his extended enactment connected the Mario Kart series. He directed the archetypal Super Mario Kart and Mario Kart 64, earlier going connected to nutrient Mario DS, Mario Kart Wii, Mario Kart 7, Mario Kart 8 (plus the Deluxe version), and Mario Kart Tour. He got a peculiar acknowledgment recognition connected Switch 2 motorboat rubric Mario Kart World.

German exemplary Eva Padberg (R) and crippled developer Hideki Konno (L) amusement a Nintendo DS connected August 17, 2005 successful Leipzig, Germany. Photo by Andreas Rentz/Getty Images.

Konno produced galore different games similar Nintendogs and was besides hardware manager for the 3DS. As caput of Nintendo mobile, helium produced titles specified arsenic Animal Crossing Pocket Camp and Fire Emblem Heroes, arsenic good arsenic contributing to the planetary occurrence of Pokémon Go!

As reported by Japanese quality outlet Game*Spark, past twelvemonth Konno updated his employment presumption connected Facebook to accidental that helium near Nintendo successful July 2025. This was precocious spotted by fans implicit connected the Famiboard forums and has go a talking constituent connected Twitter / X implicit the weekend.

Noticing the treatment of Konno’s departure, Takaya Imamura (another erstwhile Nintendo worker who was creation manager connected Star Fox 64 and The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask) tweeted: "Konno's resignation is starting to pull attention. The radical who defined an epoch are leaving Nintendo." Imamura himself departed Nintendo successful 2021 to prosecute his ain projects, resulting successful the Omega 6 manga and Switch crippled Omega 6: The Triangle Stars (he adjacent wrote a blog station connected wherefore helium left).

Last week, it was revealed that different longtime Nintendo creator, Kensuke Tanabe, had precocious retired, with Tanabe confirming that Metroid Prime 4 was his past crippled astatine Nintendo (as reported by Video Games Chronicle). Many of the legendary crippled creators who shaped the NES and SNES eras are present successful their 60s and 70s, including Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto (72). We volition apt beryllium seeing galore much of these influential crippled designers departing Nintendo successful the coming years, particularly with the Switch 2 retired the door.

Photo by Andreas Rentz/Getty Images.

Verity Townsend is simply a Japan-based freelance writer who antecedently served arsenic editor, contributor and translator for the crippled quality tract Automaton West. She has besides written astir Japanese civilization and movies for assorted publications.