20 Facts About Masahiro Sakurai

Masahiro Sakurai is a Japanese video game director and game designer best known as the creator of the Kirby and Super Smash Bros.

Formerly an employee of HAL Laboratory, Sakurai left the company in 2003 and in 2005 with his wife Michiko Sakurai founded their company Sora Ltd.

Masahiro Sakurai was an author of a weekly column for Famitsu magazine from 2003 to 2021, and has done voice acting work in some of his games, most notably providing the voice of King Dedede in Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards and the Super Smash Bros.

From 2022 to 2024, Sakurai ran an educational YouTube channel, Masahiro Sakurai on Creating Games, which discussed various topics in game design and his career.

Masahiro Sakurai was born on August 3,1970, in Musashimurayama, Tokyo, Japan.

Masahiro Sakurai explained in an interview with Nintendo Dream that he felt it would be difficult to create new projects while staying at HAL due to the direction of the gaming industry, where the risk of failure was high.

On September 30,2005, Masahiro Sakurai announced that he had formed his own company, Sora Ltd.

Masahiro Sakurai had been updating daily the Super Smash Bros Brawl website called the Smash Bros.

At E3 2011, Nintendo announced that Masahiro Sakurai was working on Super Smash Bros.

In February 2013, Masahiro Sakurai was diagnosed with calcific tendinitis near his right shoulder, which caused him substantial pain whenever he moved his arm.

Masahiro Sakurai mentioned that this could effectively slow down his work, as he does some of his game testing himself.

In December 2015, Masahiro Sakurai stated that he was not sure if there would be another game in the Smash Bros.

On March 14,2022, Masahiro Sakurai was awarded Best Creator by Weekly Famitsu.

Masahiro Sakurai announced that he was working on a new project not related to game production.

In March 2025, Masahiro Sakurai announced that he had been awarded the AMD Award for Lifetime Achievement.

Sakurai launched Masahiro Sakurai on Creating Games, a YouTube channel in both English and Japanese in August 2022.

Masahiro Sakurai stated that the channel was founded because he wanted to reach more people with his lessons after being asked to lecture at schools.

Masahiro Sakurai additionally noted that other venues for lessons from game developers, such as the Game Developers Conference, focused on more advanced, technical details, rather than more basic principles.

In 2023, the Computer Entertainment Supplier's Association announced that Masahiro Sakurai had won the Game Design and Visual Arts awards for his channel.

In March 2025, Masahiro Sakurai announced that he had been listed as a recipient of the Agency for Cultural Affairs' annual Art Encouragement Prize for New Artists for his work on his channel.