Former type Private Headquarters Japan Defunct 2005 | Industry Video game industry Founded 1972 | |
Fate Reassigned to the Nintendo EAD Products Games for Nintendo video game consoles Successor Nintendo Entertainment Analysis & Development | ||
Nintendo Research and Development 2 (任天堂開発第二部, Nintendo Kaihatsu Dainibu) (R&D2) was a team within Nintendo that developed software and peripherals. R&D2 ported several of the Nintendo R&D1 and Nintendo R&D3 games over to the Famicom in the early 1980s. While usually occupied in system operating software and technical support, the team would come back to early development in the 1990s where several new designers got their start at game development, the most famous being Eiji Aonuma who developed Marvelous: Treasure Island.
R&D2 was originally led by Masayuki Uemura, who previously worked for Sharp Corporation, using an idea of Sharp's solar technology Uemura's department went on to develop the popular Nintendo beam gun games, selling over 1 million units. Kazuhiko Taniguchi took Uemura's position in 2004. Nintendo R&D2 was later merged into Nintendo SPD.