Nintendo EAD

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Nintendo EAD
Type First Party
Founded 1984
Status Merged
Base Kyoto, Japan
Bestseller Super Mario Bros.
Homepage Japanese Site
US Site
Notable Members Eiji Aonuma
Shigeru Miyamoto
Key Franchises Animal Crossing
F-Zero
Mario
Pikmin
Star Fox
The Legend of Zelda

Originally known as R&D4, Nintendo EAD was Nintendo's most celebrated development team. Led by Shigeru Miyamoto, it was Nintendo's largest development team until it was merged with Nintendo SPD in 2015 to become Nintendo EPD. EAD stands for Entertainment Analysis and Development.

History

R&D4

R&D4 was founded in 1984. The president of Nintendo, impressed with the success of Shigeru Miyamoto's games, decided to give Miyamoto his own development team. It was the smallest development team, but they created some of the NES's most memorable games: the Mario and The Legend of Zelda series.

EAD

In 1989, the president of Nintendo decided to restructure the company. Most of the software developers from R&D2 and R&D3 were transferred to the newly renamed Nintendo EAD. They were told to focus on developing games for the Super Nintendo. They continued with the popular Mario and Zelda franchises, while creating new ones including Star Fox and F-Zero. Though they didn't make as many Gameboy games as R&D1, they made a few, most notably The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening.

During the Nintendo 64 era, EAD continued to create new games in their popular franchises. In addition, they began a few new franchises. Wave Race 64 and 1080 Snowboarding were popular. They supported the Pokemon franchise with Pokemon Stadium. However, the most significant new franchise was Animal Forest, a life simulator.

With the Gamecube came new games. Nintendo EAD continued to create games for it's two key franchises: Mario and Zelda. However, the majority of it's franchises were taken over by other groups. They brought over a new version of the Japanese Animal Forest to America under the name Animal Crossing. They also began a new series with Pikmin

New Structure

In 2005, Satoru Iwata decided to merge all of Nintendo's internal software developers into one group. R&D1, R&D2, and Nintendo Special Planning & Development were all merged with EAD. However, because of the size of the group, they have been divided into smaller Software Development groups. Under this new system, Miyamoto has control over all of Nintendo's internal game development. It's currently unknown how many Software Development Groups there are, but there is information about at least six different groups.


Merger

Following the death of Iwata in 2015, much of Nintendo was restructured. EAD was merged with Nintendo SPD (Software Planning & Development) to form a new division called Nintendo EPD (Entertainment Planning & Development]].

Software Development Groups

Software Development Group #1
Manager: Hideki Konno
Games: Nintendogs, Mario Kart DS
Software Development Group #2
Manager: Katsuya Eguchi
Games: Animal Crossing: Wild World, Animal Crossing: City Folk
Software Development Group #3
Manager: Eiji Aonuma
Games: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
Software Development Group #4
Manager: Hiroyuki Kimura
Games: Yoshi Touch & Go, Big Brain Academy
Software Development Group Tokyo
Manager: Takao Shimizu
Games: Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat
Software Development Group #?
Manager: Shinya Takahashi
Games: Jam with the Band, Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day!

Games

Nintendo Entertainment System

Super NES

Nintendo 64

Nintendo 64DD

Gamecube

Nintendo Wii

Wii U

Nintendo Switch

Game Boy

Game Boy Color

Game Boy Advance

Nintendo DS

Nintendo 3DS

See Also

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