He began work at Nintendo in 1986 and spent some time doing promotional artwork before starting as a designer on Super Mario Bros. 3.

Other games he has directed include Super Mario World, Star Fox 2, Wave Race 64, and Yoshi's Story.

[11][12][13] Mental Floss writes that "Animal Crossing was inspired by Eguchi’s experiences...when he was a 21 year-old graduate who’d taken the decisive step of moving from Chiba, where he’d grown up and studied, to Nintendo’s HQ in Kyoto.

Chiba is east of Tokyo and quite a distance from Kyoto, and when I moved there I left my family and friends behind.

I wondered for a long time if there would be a way to recreate that feeling, and that was the impetus behind the original Animal Crossing.