Genyo Takeda, a longtime Nintendo employee who has had his hands all over the company over the last five decades, plans to retire later this year.The news was shared as part of Nintendo`s latest earnings report, as Takeda currently serves on the board of directors, acting as both a representative director and Technology Fellow. He assumed the latter position following the death of former Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata; at the time, Shigeru Miyamoto was named to the role of Creative Fellow.Iwata had previously described Takeda, who joined the company in the early `70s, as `Nintendo`s first game designer.` As recounted in an Iwata Asks, Miyamoto recounts how Takeda created an arcade horse-racing game, EVR Race, that came out in 1975--the game that Nintendo considers its first ever, and one that came out while Miyamoto was still a student. Miyamoto also noted how the difficulty with maintaining EVR Race due to it use of a videotape helped to discourage Nintendo from using laserdiscs when `people were saying that laserdisc games would be the next big thing,` because it was concerned with maintenance issues.Takeda would go on to work with the team that created Punch-Out, the original arcade version of which used a dual-screen setup that would later be mimicked by the Nintendo DS. He would also play prominent roles in other key developments for the company. He`s perhaps most famously credited as responsible for both the built-in battery that allowed progress to be saved in The Legend of Zelda and the creation of the N64`s analog stick.Takeda will retire from his role as representative director in June. He`ll potentially be replaced by Ko Shiota, who currently serves as an executive officer and the GM of Nintendo`s platform technology development division.
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