Nintendo leaders: Shigeru Miyamoto (left), Tatsumi Kimishima, and Genyo Takeda (right). Takeda will retire in June after helping develop Nintendo consoles for decades.
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Nintendo’s hardware chief Genyo Takeda is retiring after 45 years

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 1 min

If legendary game developer Shigeru Miyamoto has been the right hand for generations of Nintendo leaders, then Genyo Takeda has been the left one. And last night, Nintendo announced that Takeda, who led the development of the Wii game console, will retire in June from the company.

The 68-year-old Takeda joined Nintendo in 1972, 45 years ago. He was promoted to Nintendo’s Integrated Research & Development in 1981, and he mostly worked on the hardware for home consoles and handhelds. His replacement is Ko Shiota, the general manager of Nintendo’s platform technology development division.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.