Mario Kart Producer Hideki Konno Leaves Nintendo After 40 Years

Hideki Konno, a director and producer who has worked on numerous Nintendo titles, has left the company after 40 years.

This news was recently discovered by checking his Facebook page, which says that he left Nintendo back in July 2025. Konno worked on games from many of Nintendo’s franchises, including serving as Director of the original Mario Kart, Yoshi’s Island, and Luigi’s Mansion, as well as the Producer of Nintendogs. He was also the lead Producer of the 3DS, and helped create StreetPass and SpotPass.

More recently however, Konno was put in charge of Nintendo’s mobile projects back in 2015, and was a Producer for pretty much every single one, including Fire Emblem Heroes, Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, Mario Kart Tour, and Dragalia Lost. It is speculated that Konno left Nintendo due to the the company winding down its work in the mobile game space, many of which have since reached their end of service.

Earlier this week, we learned that Metroid Prime producer Kensuke Tanabe also retired from Nintendo, also after a nearly 40 year tenure. We will likely here more such news as more of Nintendo’s old guard reached retirement age.

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