Nintendo
Sakurai reveals the PowerPoint presentation he used to introduce Kirby to Nintendo in 1990
Designer Masahiro Sakurai shows the documents he used in 1990 (at the age of 19) to sell the idea of Kirby to Nintendo and his first video game, Kirby’s Dream Land.
Sakurai reveals the PowerPoint presentation he used to introduce Kirby to Nintendo in 1990
Kirby's secret documents
To celebrate the 100th video on his YouTube channel (called "Masahiro Sakurai on Creating Games"), the famed designer has shared the original documents he used to sell the idea for Kirby to Nintendo in 1990.
A genius at an early age
Masahiro Sakurai submitted these concept art for Kirby's Dream Land to Nintendo in May 1990, when he was only 19 years old.
The simpler, the better
The presentation lasted just 20 minutes, and Sakurai tried to make it simple enough for everyone to understand how the game works and how much fun it could be.
Recording time
According to Sakurai, Kirby's Dream Land took no more than a year to develop.
The game's big problem
His biggest challenge was fitting the game's 2 megabits into a 512 kilobit ROM.
The Solution
Sakurai got around this problem by reusing the design of some enemies for others (this is the case with Waddle Dee and Waddle Doo).
A great success
What the documents didn't say was that Kirby's Dream Land would go on to sell 5 million copies and become a huge hit. It was so successful that when it was re-released on the Game Boy, it still topped the sales charts.