Masahiro Sakurai, the designer of the Kirby and the Super Smash Bros series, has revealedin his Famitsu column that he is currently suffering from repetitive strain injury, which is causing him all sorts of problems. Sakurai says that repetitive strain injury is getting to the point where it’s starting to restrict both his work and lifestyle. Sakurai’s says that the solution for the time being is to use a trackball. Here’s what he wrote.

“Using a mouse, keyboard or gamepad make my arm tired, so I can’t use them in a continual manner. The only device I can use for an extended period of time is a joystick. It’s posing problems when I’m test-playing something in progress.”

[repetitive strain injury] is getting to “the point where it’s starting to restrict my work and lifestyle,”

“I figure that if I cut down on writing emails and other things, try not to type in so much data myself, and start giving more verbal directions, that’ll reduce the amount of keyboard-oriented work I have to do. But if I’m going to be supervising other people’s work, there’s no way to cut down the amount of mouse usage I need to perform. I’m trying to work it with my left hand in order to give the right one some rest, but that definitely cuts down on my work efficiency…”

“Kirby was drawn with a trackball on the Game Boy and NES. The internal hardware team at HAL came up with a way to connect a trackball to the NES, then use a dev tool that ran on a Twin Famicom disc to draw graphics. It was great because you could draw and animate graphics right on the NES screen with the trackball, clicking on numbers onscreen to go between animation frames. It really had a beneficial effect on HAL’s NES and Game Boy development — in some ways I think we really had a powerhouse system.”

“I’ve been familiar with trackballs for years, so controlling one should be easy…in theory! Hopefully the day will come when I’m able to use them for extended periods with my right hand again. I hope this gets healed up!”

 

http://mynintendonews.com/2013/01/31/smash-bros-creator-masahiro-sakurai-is-suffering-from-rsi/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

If he keeps using his hand this intensively then he might form Arthritis. This seems to already be happening though...

If he wants to get rid of this RSI then he'll need to take anti-inflammatory medication, most likely. This should help all of that muscle swelling go down. The muscles probably swelled because, like he said, he uses the keyboard and the gamepad a lot. 

Get well soon, Sakurai!

Such great memories with all three smash games.... Get better soon!!!

It's a problem many of us will be suffering from I'm afraid. I already have to use my left hand for mouse control at work, it's natural for me now.

Had a rough time playing Diable II 2 months back, and the clicking was causing me serious pain. Be nice to your arms and hands friends.

With an injury like that he's clearly a member of the master race. Welcome aboard Sakurai. Can't wait for the new Smash Bros to come out on PC.

When I saw the title I didn't know what RSI was. Thought it was something a lot more serious. Kind of sucks though. My favorite game developer ever.

It is serious is some ways. I mean it's not something that will cause you death or anything, but it could affect your normal life. One of my co workers had to quit job (temporarily) because of this, the pain can be pretty bad. 

Why would it come out on PC because of this?

Because I read a rumour of a rumour off an unknown website linked to another website with no integrity, which happened to be hosted on a gaming news site renowned for its promotion of baseless rumors. Don't question such irrefutable logic.

That makes total sense. I believe you, you need to make more news threads on these rumors.