Earlier this month, legendary game developer turned YouTuber Masahiro Sakurai announced the time and date for his last YouTube video. Now, he has shared a reminder, with some interesting new details.
As reported by NintendoLife, he shared this message:
“Look forward to the YouTube Premiere special finale of Masahiro Sakurai on Creating Games this coming Tuesday, October 22nd at 20:00 Japan time! (11:00 GMT) It’ll run a bit over 40 minutes.
It might be a bit difficult for my international viewers to tune in at that time, but everyone is welcome. And for those who can’t make it, it’ll be available to view afterwards on my channel as well. I hope to see you there!”
Since Sakurai started his YouTube channel, he had been making videos sharing insights about the world of game development, from the perspective of someone who has been making games for decades, and who rose up the ladder from a talented programmer to being one of the highest ranking game designers in the industry.
However, Sakurai has also been deliberately making these videos short and simple. Often, a single video explains only one or two ideas, and they frequently don’t go beyond ten minutes. Many videos are even down to five minutes or less.
Sakurai explained that he was deliberately simplifying his videos, and he had also considerably narrowed the scope of his channel. He wasn’t planning to make an entire game developer course free on YouTube.
Rather, Sakurai wanted to improve gamers’ understanding of game development and the industry in general. While these videos take a considerably different form than his late boss’ Iwata Asks interviews, they essentially had the same end goal in mind.
So, why is Sakurai making his final video a forty minute presentation? It certainly sounds like this is about more than sharing a lesson on his YouTube channel.
In fact, that length is akin to that of a video game marketing presentation, very much like a Nintendo Direct. Now, we must be clear that Sakurai may make games for Nintendo, but he isn’t actually a Nintendo employee.
Still, it is not impossible that Sakurai may be making a Nintendo related announcement, as one particular Nintendo game looms over his channel and career.
For 19 years, Sakurai has been making the Super Smash Bros. games with a nearly religious dedication. Part of this is an oversight of Sakurai’s and Nintendo’s part, as they did not properly make plans to prepare a successor to make Super Smash Bros. games after him.
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate itself released six years ago, and that would have been sufficient time to make a new Super Smash Bros. game. Sakurai may or may not have been making or is starting to make a new Super Smash Bros. game, but he may make an announcement related to it.
Either Sakurai reveals he’s back to work on the next Super Smash Bros. game, or he could announce the new team who made it without him. If you want to believe it, Sakurai’s YouTube video might have something to do with the Switch 2 announcement too.
Maybe it isn’t possible to announce the next Super Smash Bros. game without the Switch 2, and that would be the reason that Nintendo will announce the Switch 2 shortly. Maybe Sakurai even has the greenlight to share a small tease for the new console too.
We don’t know that Sakurai will be holding a Mark Cerny-like announcement for the Switch 2, as he’s not the right person for the job. Still, we can’t avoid bringing this all up too, since the timing is just right for all of this to happen at the same time. But we’ll see how this week will play out.
