Sakurai earns the Silver Play Button for his new YouTube channel

Super Smash Bros. creator Masahiro Sakurai’s YouTube channel has been growing at a rapid pace.

Sakurai saddened the Smash community when he announced that he was running out of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate screenshots. He had been sharing screenshots on Twitter for years, meaning a beloved tradition was coming to an end. But Sakurai revealed later on that he was going to start a new project, a YouTube channel called Masahiro Sakurai on Creating Games.

The new YouTube channel has a Japanese and English version, sharing videos about designing games. While Sakurai has made it clear he won’t be getting very technical in his videos, he said he wanted to share some inside pointers and perspectives about designing games and what it takes to make games fun.

As the creator of the Smash series, Kirby, and other iconic Nintendo series, Sakurai is a trusted voice in the gaming community. So it’s no surprise that his channel started to gain subscribers quite rapidly.

Now, Sakurai has received a Silver Play Button. This is rewarded to YouTube channels that have surpassed 100K subscribers. Sakurai currently has over 451K subscribers on his English channel and 384K on his Japanese channel, meaning he has easily blown past this milestone since the channel launched a few weeks back.

早い!!!! pic.twitter.com/kzZWsRSere

— 桜井 政博 / Masahiro Sakurai (@Sora_Sakurai) September 11, 2022

Many prominent members of the gaming community have come forward to congratulate Sakurai on his achievement. Most noted how quickly Sakurai had achieved the Silver Play Button.

Fastest plaque ever LOL

— GamesCage – Hype Guy (@GamesCage_) September 11, 2022

Congratulations!!

— RubberRoss (@RubberNinja) September 11, 2022

Well-deserved! Thank you so much for all of the insights! 😊

— Katie – MiniKitty (@KatieChrz) September 11, 2022

Sakurai has uploaded 12 videos so far, including videos on lag and frame rates as well as behind-the-scenes looks at iconic Kirby games. He’s also discussed risk and reward as well as pauses during “big” moments, showing how much thought is put behind even seemingly small details of every game.