Nintendo Entertainment Planning & Development

Exterior of the Nintendo Development Center in Kyoto
Native name	任天堂企画制作本部
Romanized name	Nintendō Kikaku Seisaku Honbu
Company type	Division
Industry	Video games
Predecessors	Nintendo EAD Nintendo SPD
Founded	September 16, 2015; 10 years ago (2015-09-16)
Headquarters	Kyoto , Japan
Number of locations	2 (Kyoto and Tokyo)
Key people	Executive General Manager Shinya Takahashi Senior General Manager Yoshiaki Koizumi Deputy General Managers Katsuya Eguchi Hisashi Nogami Takayuki Shimamura Senior Officers Takashi Tezuka Yoshio Sakamoto Kensuke Tanabe Eiji Aonuma Koji Kondo
Brands	Animal Crossing Big Brain Academy Brain Age Donkey Kong The Legend of Zelda Mario Kart Metroid Pikmin Splatoon Star Fox Super Mario
Parent	Nintendo
Divisions	Co-Production Group Production Group No. 3 Production Group No. 4 Production Group No. 5 Production Group No. 6 Production Group No. 7 Production Group No. 8 Production Group No. 9 Production Group No. 10 Smart Device Production Group Programming Management Group Design Management Group Sound Management Group

Nintendo Entertainment Planning & Development Division,^[a] abbreviatedNintendo EPD, is the largest division within the Japanese video game companyNintendo. The division focuses on developing and producing video games, mobile apps, and other related entertainment software for the company. Nintendo EPD was established in September 2015 after merging theirEntertainment Analysis & Development andSoftware Planning & Development divisions.

The division was created on September 16, 2015, after theconsolidation of two of Nintendo's former software divisions,Entertainment Analysis & Development (EAD) andSoftware Planning & Development (SPD), as part of a company-wide organizational restructure under Nintendo's newly appointed president,Tatsumi Kimishima.^[1][2][3]

The division assumed both of its predecessors' roles, focusing on thedevelopment of games and software for Nintendo platforms andmobile devices; it also manages and licenses the company's variousintellectual properties, alongside producing and supervising development for external studios.

Shinya Takahashi, former general manager of Nintendo SPD,^[4] has the same title in EPD, withYoshiaki Koizumi,Katsuya Eguchi,Eiji Aonuma, andHisashi Nogami as deputy general managers, andKensuke Tanabe,Yoshio Sakamoto, andTakashi Tezuka as senior officers. The others had been in such positions since the division's formation, Nogami was promoted in 2017, and Aonuma and Tanabe and were promoted into higher positions within the division in 2019.^[3][5][6] By 2023, Takahashi and Koizumi were promoted to more senior positions, with Takayuki Shimamura being named deputy general manager and Aonuma, and sound designerKoji Kondo named senior officers.^{[7][8][9][10]}

Mainly located in Kyoto, the Nintendo division works similarly to its two predecessors before the merger and is divided into many groups. It has ten production groups responsible for development or production of games, each of them having their own managers, producers and project leads working on specific series and focus, with them using the pool of talents in the division for each project. In the overall division, the general manager, deputy general managers, and senior officers oversee different aspects in those production groups. The division also houses the Programming Management, Design Management, and Sound Management groups.^{[11][12][13][14][15]} There are currently 10 game production groups within Nintendo EPD:

• Co-Production Group, previously known as Production Group No. 2 until 2023, produces most of the games developed by external studios^[b] and published by Nintendo,^[16] such as theMario Tennis,Kirby,Xenoblade Chronicles,Fire Emblem andMario & Luigi series. It consists of staff from a former Production Group No. 1 in the division which was merged to Production Group No. 2 in 2020.^{[5][17][18][19][20][21][22]}
• Production Group No. 3 develops the mainThe Legend of Zelda series.^[11][23]
• Production Group No. 4 develops casual and experimental games such asMiitopia,1-2-Switch,Nintendo Labo,Ring Fit Adventure,Jump Rope Challenge,Game Builder Garage,Big Brain Academy: Brain vs. Brain,Nintendo Switch Sports andEverybody 1-2-Switch!.^{[24][25][26][27][21]} The division also co-developedAlarmo withNintendo PTD.^[28]
• Production Group No. 5, with group managerAya Kyogoku, develops theAnimal Crossing andSplatoon series.^[29][30][31]
• Production Group No. 6 oversee and produce games developed by external studios and published by Nintendo, such as thePaper Mario,Metroid Prime andLuigi's Mansion series.^[32]
• Production Group No. 7 developedMiitomo and co-develops 2DMetroid games withMercurySteam andFamicom Detective Club games withMAGES.^[33][31][34]
• Production Group No. 8, also known as Nintendo EPD Tokyo, develops the 3DSuper Mario games and 3DDonkey Kong games.^{[5][35][36][15]}
• Production Group No. 9, develops theMario Kart series andArms.^[5][37]
• Production Group No. 10 develops 2DSuper Mario games (including theSuper Mario Maker series) and thePikmin series.^[26][12][38]
• Smart Device Production Group, with group managerHideki Konno, developsmartphone games alongside other EPD groups as well as produce games by external studios.^[33][39]

• Companies based in Kyoto
• First-party video game developers
• Japanese companies established in 2015
• Nintendo divisions and subsidiaries
• Video game companies established in 2015
• Video game development companies

• Articles containing Japanese-language text
• CS1 Japanese-language sources (ja)
• Articles with short description
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• Use mdy dates from April 2025