Tatsuo Nomura facts for kids

Tatsuo Nomura (野村 達雄, Nomura Tatsuo, born 1986) is a talented Japanese software developer. He is best known for being the director of the super popular game Pokémon Go. He was born in China and later moved to Japan as a child. There, he studied computer science and began his career.

Early Life and Education

Tatsuo Nomura was born in 1986. He grew up in a small village in Heilongjiang, China. His birth name was Shi Lei (Chinese: 石磊; pinyin: Shí Lěi). His grandmother on his father's side was Japanese. She stayed in China after Second World War and married a Chinese man.

When he was nine years old, his family moved to Japan. They settled in Nagano Prefecture. Shi Lei changed his name to Tatsuo Nomura. At first, he found it hard to speak Japanese.

He went to Shinshu University to study computer engineering. He finished his degree in 2009. After that, he continued his studies at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. He wrote an important paper about supercomputing. This paper was well-received by researchers in America. He earned his master's degree in 2011.

Career Highlights

After getting his master's degree, Nomura joined Google's office in Japan in 2011. He worked as an engineer. He helped develop Google Maps and other projects. In 2013, he moved to Google's office in America.

Nomura helped create some fun April Fools' Day jokes for Google Maps. For example, in 2012, they made an "8-bit Google Maps". In 2013, they created a "treasure hunt" game.

Creating Pokémon Go

In 2014, Nomura had a cool idea for a Google Maps April Fools' Day prank. He wanted users to be able to hunt Pokémon on their phones. He got permission from The Pokémon Company (TPC). TPC had offices near Google's Japan office. The prank was a big hit when it came out in 2014.

Nomura's idea caught the eye of John Hanke. Hanke used to lead the Google Maps team. He asked Nomura to talk to The Pokémon Company again. This time, they wanted to suggest making an augmented reality Pokémon game.

After many talks, Nomura accepted an offer from Niantic Labs in 2015. He became the lead developer for this new game. It was named Pokémon Go. Tsunekazu Ishihara, the president of The Pokémon Company, said Nomura was chosen because he was so diverse. He had experience from different countries and backgrounds.

At Niantic, Nomura became a Senior Product Manager by 2016. He started as an engineer for Pokémon Go. But as the game's team grew, he moved into a product manager role. He also directed other mobile games. These include Pikmin Bloom in 2021 and Monster Hunter Now in 2023.