Nintendo Entertainment Analysis & Development
Nintendo Entertainment Analysis & Development Division, commonly abbreviated as Nintendo EAD and formerly known as Nintendo Research & Development No.4 Department, was the largest software development division within the Japanese video game company Nintendo. It was preceded by the Creative Department, a team of designers with backgrounds in art responsible for many different tasks, to which Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka originally belonged. Both served as managers of the EARD studios and were credited in every game developed by the division, with varying degrees of involvement. Nintendo EAD was best known for its work on games in the Donkey Kong, Mario, The Legend of Zelda, F-Zero, Star Fox, Animal Crossing, Pikmin, and Wii series.
Exterior of the Nintendo Central Office in Kyoto, where the division was housed for most of its existence
The success of Shigeru Miyamoto's Donkey Kong arcade game was a deciding factor in the creation of Nintendo R&D4.
Katsuya Eguchi, Deputy General Manager of the Nintendo EAD division in Kyoto
Yoshiaki Koizumi became manager of a second department of the Nintendo EAD division in Tokyo after 2007.
Shigeru Miyamoto is a Japanese video game designer, producer and game director at Nintendo, where he serves as one of its representative directors as an executive since 2002. Widely regarded as one of the most accomplished and influential designers in video games, he is the creator of some of the most acclaimed and best-selling game franchises of all time, including Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Donkey Kong, Star Fox and Pikmin. More than 1 billion copies of games featuring franchises created by Miyamoto have been sold.
Miyamoto in 2015
Miyamoto graduated from Kanazawa College of Art in Ishikawa Prefecture.
Miyamoto's Super Mario Bros. was bundled with the NES in America. The game and the system are credited with helping to bring North America out of the slump of the 1983 game industry crash.
Miyamoto was responsible for the controller design of the Super Famicom/Nintendo. Its L/R buttons were an industry first and have since become commonplace.