The 2D Mario Team is always referred to as 'Tezuka's' but how accurate is this?
He was Producer on Galaxy 2 and General Producer on 3D Land and 3D World which are similar* roles to those he held on 'his' 2D games (Producer on all 4 NSMB games and Maker) so I'm curious...
*General Producer is more hands-on isn't it? So he may have been more involved in recent 3D games than he was for 2D games in fact.
Nope, quite far off-the mark.
Producer is the more hands on role.
General Producer = runs the general division, that's how Miyamoto was General Producer on pretty much anything that came out of EAD, oversees multiple groups.
Producer = runs the group (like Aonuma with the Zelda group), oversees the games made in that group with its respective directors
Director = in charge of the game itself
Tezuka goes hands on as producer for 2D Mario and the Yoshi series, he doesn't really run a group. Basically those are his special interest babies. That's also how Miyamoto ended up as producer/supervising director on Star Fox Zero, because that was his special interest baby that he had involved himself in more deeply after taking on his "Creative Fellow" position and leaving the "general producer" days behind as Tezuka and Eguchi took over in Kyoto.
edit: to go into more detail, I'm taking this from the kyoto report overview to explain:
http://kyoto-report.wikidot.com/nintendo-epd
EPD Management
Shinya Takahashi - General Manager
Katsuya Eguchi - Deputy General Manager
Yoshiaki Koizumi - Deputy General Manager
Keisuke Terasaki - Deputy General Manager
Yoshio Sakamoto - Executive Officer
Takashi Tezuka - Executive Officer
Shinya Takahashi runs all of EPD. That's why you see him in Directs and stuff. He has Miyamoto's old job now, basically. He oversees all of the game development projects. Under that, you have the three Deputy General Managers, Eguchi (oversees all internal EPD Kyoto development), Koizumi (oversees all internal EPD Tokyo development), and Terasaki (oversees all the external productions that EPD Kyoto has in development with partners, like the Yoshi games, Kirby, Fire Emblems, Bayonettas, Xenoblades, etc - anything that isn't made by EPD Kyoto). Then you have Sakamoto and Tezuka as Executive Officers. What their specific role is, I don't know. I recall seeing a post somewhere by EAD Ninja or someone else speculating about that themselves since it's a bit nebulous. It's definitely a special and distinct title due to their seniority but I can't really explain how they actually rank in terms of authority there or what their main duty is. Fact is, we know they take special interst in several key franchises (like Sakamoto with the Mii-titles and Metroid, for example) and Tezuka with 2D Mario and Yoshi first and foremost. And then there's all the group managers running their individual groups as you see them in the OP.
