It’s been two and a half years since Masahiro Sakurai, finest identified for guiding Smash Bros. Final and the opposite entries in Nintendo’s hit platform preventing sequence, took a break from improvement to create a YouTube channel devoted to educating followers and gamers about how video games are made. The channel’s ultimate video went up at present, and Sakurai capped it off with two shock bulletins.
The primary surprising reveal was that the content material for his channel was nearly all created initially. The Sakurai that many followers thought they have been seeing in every new video was truly from the previous, because the movies have been shot years in the past. That Christopher Nolan-esque twist kicked off a ultimate video for the channel devoted to the way it was made and what the famed recreation director plans to do now. Not surprisingly, it contains going again to creating them.
Sakurai’s second reveal was that he had been pitching a brand new mission again when the channel first began. The time bounce signifies that, assuming the pitch obtained greenlit, the director’s new recreation could be prepared for an official announcement not too far sooner or later. Whether or not it’s a recreation within the mould of Smash Bros. or one thing utterly completely different, and whether or not it’s for the Swap 2 or one other platform completely, stays to be seen.
“I obtained a request to put in writing a recreation proposal, which I completed at lightning velocity,” he mentioned within the ultimate video. “I’m sorry I can’t share extra about this mission, however assuming we’re in a position to get it made, it needs to be introduced in the end.”
Elsewhere within the video, Sakurai shared an in depth take a look at how he organizes his day, plans out his official work and aspect hustles, and even when he goes to mattress and the way a lot sleep he will get (solely about six hours on common). He additionally included some attention-grabbing stats about manufacturing prices and channel milestones. Sakurai estimated it value about $600,000 to get the entire channel’s content material edited and translated, in addition to pay licensing charges for sure footage and crossover episodes with different corporations. Had he billed himself for all of his personal work and time scripting every part, the prices would have been even greater. However Sakurai confirmed it was all in service of an academic channel that he didn’t make any cash from.
“It actually was a foolish choice,” he mentioned. “Nonetheless, and I actually imply this, I contemplate this an funding towards a brighter future for video games.” He continued, “The world is consistently seeing new recreation releases. A number of persons are doing their finest on the market. Slightly than add yet another title to that deluge, I assumed the channel may give all video games somewhat high quality increase and I hope from the underside of my coronary heart that I’ve contributed at the very least a little bit of wind to the business sails.”
In complete, Sakurai launched 260 movies, over 19 hours of content material, with over 80 million views throughout all of it, totaling 498 years of watch time. His Japanese and English language channels have over one million subscribers mixed. Sadly, he additionally factors out that given the “volatility” of the YouTube algorithm, there’s no telling when his movies will cease getting beneficial and fade into the content material background radiation of the remainder of the platform. For now although, it sounds just like the Smash Bros. icon may have extra to share about his future recreation tasks quickly.
