Creator of Wario Land, Hirofumi Matsuoka has resigned from Nintendo of Japan to work at Creatures Inc., the studio famous for Pokémon.

Matsuoka had worked as part of Nintendo's in-house development team R&D1 since the days of the NES, designing classics such as the original Metroid, Kid Icarus, and Balloon Fight. But when Miyamoto took a back seat on the Super Mario Land series of platformers for the Game Boy, Matsuoka took over the major design work for the games.

After two Super Mario Land incarnations, the series evolved into Wario Land, of which there have been (to date) four titles. He has also worked on titles such as Super Mario Paint and Wario Ware Inc: Mega Microgame$.

Joining the development team at Creatures Inc. means Matsuoka is still connected directly with Nintendo, as the studio is closely linked with the Big N and The Pokemon Company, with whom it works on the Pokémon franchise - both the anime series and the various games. It'll be interesting to see what he comes up with in his new position.