Yoshiaki Koizumi is a Japanese video game designer, director and producer currently serving as an Executive Officer at Nintendo. Koizumi began his career in April 1991 when he was assigned to work on The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past’s manual where he conceived of the game’s backstory, the creation of Hyrule and the story of the three goddesses of Power, Wisdom and Courage.

Koizumi created the story for “Link’s Awakening” which led him to get involved in other areas of game creation other than just the creation of manuals and scripts. During the creation of the game he assisted with the creation of event design for the interaction with the villagers and designed the bosses’ behavioral patterns. This gave Koizumi a broader background in game creation leading to future opportunities within Nintendo.

Assigned as an assistant director along with Takashi Tezuka, Koizumi created the first 3D model of Mario for Super Mario 64 and started working very closely with Shigeru Miyamoto on gameplay elements such as character movement and camera positioning. Three dimensional games were virtually unexplored at the time and the team had to come up with solutions for many new elements that did not exist in two dimensional games. Many of the gameplay mechanics they created set the standard for 3D games and were utilized across the industry for decades.

The confidence that Miyamoto and Nintendo had in Koizumi after his contribution in the creation of Super Mario 64 landed him a Director position in the first 3D Legend of Zelda project. He was assigned as the 3D System Director for “The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time” and as Game System Director along side Eiji Aonuma for “The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask”.

After the completion of “Majora’s Mask” Nintendo decided to entrust Eiji Aonuma to lead the direction of “The Legend of Zelda” series and Koizumi the “Super Mario” series. Koizumi went on to direct Super Mario Sunshine and Super Mario Galaxy before being promoted to the series producer. Continuing as the Producer of the “Super Mario” series, Koizumi would oversee the creation of Super Mario Galaxy 2, Super Mario 3D Land, Super Mario 3D World and Super Mario Odyssey. While overseeing the direction of the “Super Mario” series, Koizumi continued to advance within Nintendo. In 2013, he was appointed as a Director of 1-UP Studio, a Nintendo subsidiary. In September 2015, he became Deputy General Manager of the newly formed Entertainment Planning & Development (EPD) Division when Nintendo merged their Entertainment Analysis & Development (EAD) and Software Planning & Development (SPD) divisions.

Also serving as the General Producer for the Nintendo Switch, Koizumi was part of the live streamed Nintendo Switch Presentation where he struck a chord with the Nintendo fanbase. Since the live stream presentation, Koizumi has succeeded Satoru Iwata as the international host of the Nintendo Direct video presentations and started to enter into the limelight with video game fans.