Masahiro Sakurai is one of the most hardworking game developers actively working in the gaming industry today. With his flagship series, Super Smash Bros., consuming a lot of time, energy, and attention, it's amazing how Sakurai is able to do anything other than work. However, a recent Tweet that showcased the amount of games that he played during 2019 stands to prove otherwise.
Masahiro Sakurai is the visionary behind the Super Smash Bros. franchise and is also the creator of the Kirby series. As the founder of Sora Ltd, a former developer at HAL Laboratory, and a close affiliate of Nintendo, Sakurai has had a long, lengthy career as both a video game developer and director. That being said, to say that Sakurai suffers for his work is an understatement, considering that he was unaware that Smash Bros. won a Game Award, as he was too busy working.
What's surprising is that Sakurai actively plays a lot of video games as evidenced by a Tweet he put out showing how many PlayStation games he played in 2019. The total came out to a whopping two-hundred and forty-two games and that's just accounting for PlayStation. Sakurai actually wondered how much higher the number would be if it included PC and Switch games.
While the Tweet did not specify any particular games or any other statistics that the PlayStation 2019 Wrap-Up provides, it is still rather shocking to see a workaholic like Sakurai clock in two-hundred and forty-two games over the course of one year. Though, given how much he critiques other video games, it seems that despite the amount of work he puts into his own games, Sakurai is still able to enjoy video games on a personal level.
It's admittedly rather impressive that a game director like Masahiro Sakurai, who is responsible for numerous complicated facets in terms of the development of something as successful as Smash Bros., poured so much time into other video games. What's even more amazing is how unlike other aspects of the Smash Bros. franchise, fans don't chastise Sakurai for spending his time playing games rather than working on Smash Bros.
However, regardless of what others might think or how they might feel about how much time Sakurai has sunk into playing video games, there's something inherently magical about the experiences that people have when playing video games. The way Sakurai talks about other games, especially ones that he deeply cares about, shows just how much he still loves video games, despite the amount of work he has put into making his own games.
