Hirokazu Yasuhara makes a surprise move to Nintendo of America...

Hirokazu Yasuhara, one of the original key personnel behind Sonic the Hedgehog has joined Nintendo from a previous position at Namco Bandai, according to Gamasutra.

Yasuhara served as a chief designer of gameplay and stages on the original Sonic the Hedgehog titles of the early 90's. More recently, he had a stint at Naughty Dog as a game designer for the critically-acclaimed Uncharted series.

He will take up an unspecified position at Nintendo's American studio, Nintendo Software Technology (NST).

NST are still best known for developing the DS FPS Metroid Prime Hunters. The studio suffered a pretty wretched few years after a breakdown of development on the cancelled Wii game Project H.A.M.M.E.R. It is believed NST might be on the up after a string of recent new hirings.