The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences has announced that Genyo Takeda will be the seventh Lifetime Achievement Award recipient, which will be presented at the 21st D.I.C.E. Awards this month.
After beginning his life-long career at Nintendo in July 1972, Takeda retired last year but continues to work with the company as a special corporate adviser.
In his time at Nintendo, Takeda helped to create the arcade and NES versions of Punch-Out!!, led the development of the Nintendo 64 and GameCube, and was responsible for creating the overwhelmingly successful Wii.
The Lifetime Achievement Award will be presented by AIAS board member and Nintendo of America executive vice president of operations, Don James.
“I’ve seen the impact that Takeda-san had on Nintendo having worked with him on multiple hardware launches,” James explains. “As a Board Member of the AIAS, I’ve seen the impact he’s had on thousands of producers and programmers as they have brought their creative visions to life on the systems he helped create.
“He looked at his own designs through the lens of always helping game developers. That approach to his life’s work is a great gift he gave the development community, and ultimately gamers everywhere.”
The Lifetime Achievement Award is reserved for those whose accomplishments span a broad range of disciplines over a lengthy career in the games industry, and has previously been awarded to Doug Lowenstein, Howard Lincoln, Minoru Arakawa, Ken Kutaragi, Bing Gordon, and the late Satoru Iwata.
“Technologists are lucky if they are able to make one landmark piece of hardware in their lifetime, Takeda-san was responsible for multiple pieces of hardware that helped shape generations of players,” adds Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences president Meggan Scavio.
“Hardware has been an important element of game design and has influenced so much of the realm of possibility for game development. On behalf of the Academy’s Board of Directors, we are looking forward to paying homage to this important aspect of video game history with Takeda-san’s induction as our Lifetime Achievement recipient.”
The 21st D.I.C.E. Awards will take place in Las Vegas on Thursday 22nd February 2018.
