Smash director Sakurai says he is "semi-retired" from game development
According to a recent interview from Denfaminico Gamer (and translated by Twitter user PushDustin), Masahiro Sakurai is "semi-retired" from being a longtime game director at Nintendo.
"[Sakurai] is 52," reads the translated tweet. "He felt that if he is just continuously making games full time, his life will be over before he realizes it."
In 2021, Sakurai published a column in Famitsu that briefly touched on the idea of retiring from game development. While he hasn't left Nintendo (at least, at time of writing), saying that he's "semi-retired" means that there's some sort of end in sight.
Since 1992, Sakurai has worked at Nintendo, first at HAL Laboratory and creating the character of Kirby for 1992's Kirby's Dream Land (which he also directed). But he's more commonly known for being the director of the Super Smash Bros. franchise, including 2008's Super Smash Bros. Brawl and 2018's Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
Earlier in the year, Sakurai launched a YouTube channel to educate viewers on game development. According to those translated tweets, his videos have received a large amount of likes on YouTube, and he is reportedly glad to see responses are "generally positive."
The interview and PushDustin's Twitter thread also provide some interesting insight into his onscreen appearances doing promo videos for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Since there was no real budget for promotion, the team opted to have Sakurai appear in them, and his appearances had the added benefit of allowing him to convey information the way he wanted it.
Further, Sakurai stated that there may come a point where his YouTube channel just suddenly ends. The primary focus for the channel, he said, is to make it an archive of his lessons for future game
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