Gamasutra reports that Hirokazu Yasuhara has joined Nintendo, working at the Nintendo Of America headquarters in Redmond, WA. He joins as a designer with NST, who are credited with creating the Mario VS Donkey Kong series.

Why is this news? Yasuhara is credited as a co-creator of Sonic The Hedgehog, working with Yuji Naka at Sonic Team and at Sega through 1997. During that time, Sega produced games that challenged and overtook Nintendo in many regards. He also worked with Namco-Bandai on Pac-Man Party on Wii and 3DS. With his new position at NST he will inevitably work with Mario. Hirokazu Yasuhara will become the first game designer to be credited on games featuring the three biggest names in video games: Sonic, Pac-Man, and Mario.

If this is not an impressive enough feat, he also has level design credits with Naughty Dog working on the Jak & Daxter series on PS2 and all three Uncharted games on PS3.

Game Developer magazine published a great interview with Yasuhara in 2008 you can read here.

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