He was a member of Game Freak where he was an employee and executive at the company since 1989 when he founded it alongside Satoshi Tajiri and Ken Sugimori.

He began to produce and direct games, starting with Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire, and became responsible for approving new character models.

His music draws inspiration from the work of celebrated modern composers like Dmitri Shostakovich, though he used the Super Mario series as a model of good video game composition.

[4] In high school, Masuda played the trombone; he soon discovered classical music, and was drawn in by works like Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring and Shostakovich's Symphony No.

[5] Masuda attended the Japan Electronics College, a technical school in Shinjuku, Tokyo, where he studied computer graphics and the C programming language using a DEC Professional.

He has stated that one of the hardest aspects of design is making sure that a Pokémon's name and attributes will appeal to a global audience.

The development torch to was passed to Shigeru Ohmori, who had previously assume lead director of Pokémon Sun and Moon.

[18] On June 1, 2022, Masuda left Game Freak to The Pokémon Company, acting as Chief Creative Fellow.