Masahiro Sakurai

With Japan set to announce a state of emergency for seven prefectures – including the gaming hubs of Tokyo, Osaka and Fukuoka – Masahiro Sakurai has announced via Twitter that he will be picking up the development of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate remotely.

He goes onto say that security surrounding the development of the game is extremely tight, and therefore this would not have been a simple decision to make.

Here's the translation of the tweet:

I'm also going to be working remotely.
In other words, I'll be supervising from home. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate needs to maintain extremely tight security and is therefore difficult to work on remotely, but now's the time to do so.
Let's work hard and get through this together!

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This comes on the heels of a Capcom employee contracting the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, and resulting in Capcom seeking to protect its employees from the outbreak. Despite the state of emergency, Japan cannot legally enforce a lockdown other countries have established. Instead, local governors will receive certain limited powers and request all non-essential businesses temporarily operate remotely. It can be reasonably expected that many studios will be announcing remote development.

We ask all readers to please stay home and enjoy some Nintendo games on your downtime.

[source twitter.com, via www3.nhk.or.jp]