Kotaku has recently reported that Super Smash Bros. lead designer, Masahiro Sakurai, has an arm injury that severely limits the use of his right arm.  This injury has been present for awhile, but it has now been diagnosed with calcific tendinitis.  Further injury in his arm results from muscle ruptures and dull elbow joint pain.

“I go to work every day, and in order to give instructions and conduct testing, heavy use of a keyboard and game pad are necessary.  I use a game pad for test playing games as well as controlling the camera in the debug mode to check the graphics.”

Polygon reported previously that Sakurai has been relying heavily on a track ball for a lot of his work.  However, he cannot adhere to his previous schedule, in which he worked in is off time to keep the project on track.

“There’s no instant cure for it, so all I can do is either block the pain with injections or put my arm in a cast to keep the ruptures from spreading. I was told that the important thing was to keep my arm as rested as possible. In order to get it fully healed, the only thing is to not use my right arm or hand. So not only am I using a trackball with my left hand; now I’m using it to eat, brush my teeth, wash my hair, and even drive as much as I’m able to.”

In order to test the new Smash Bros. game, Sakurai has had to stretch his left hand over the Wii U pro controller.  While this can work somewhat well, the same cannot be said for the 3DS version, in which Sakurai has to work the d-bug camera on top of the character movements.

We all hope that Sakurai’s arm recovers.  We also understand any delay in the game’s production, as game production should not come at the cost of a person’s health.