Bill Trinen (born William Trinen on August 21, 1972) is the Vice President, Player & Product Experience of Nintendo of America.[3][4] He is also a professional Japanese-to-English translator who has worked on the localization of numerous Nintendo-published video games. He often acts as an interpreter for various Japanese developers, most notably video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto.

Bill Trinen
Bill Trinen at the 2007 Game Developers Conference
Born
William Trinen

August 21, 1972 (1972-08-21) (age 52)[1][2]
NationalityAmerican
EducationAoyama Gakuin University, University of Oregon
Alma materUniversity of Oregon
Occupation(s)Vice President, Player & Product Experience

Education

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Trinen began studying Japanese while in high school and continued at the University of Oregon, where he majored in Japanese and minored in Business. He also studied international business, international management, economics, and translation for a year overseas at the Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo, Japan, and lived in Shibuya.[4][5]

Role at Nintendo

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Trinen began work with Nintendo translating bug reports on The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and was then hired full-time for the Nintendo Treehouse, its game localization division. He described his responsibilities in the Treehouse as "helping explain to people at Nintendo what the cool new features of the games are and points to focus on in PR and marketing". Trinen's first translation project was Mario Party, a Nintendo 64 game first released in Japan in 1998 and in western regions in 1999. He became the interpreter for Shigeru Miyamoto six months into the job by request of former NOA software engineering manager Jim Merrick.[5] Trinen has also presented in various North American Nintendo Direct presentations, appeared in numerous E3s and is a significant public figure of NOA's Nintendo Treehouse division.

References

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  1. ^ "Tomodachi Life Direct 4.10.14 - YouTube". YouTube. 2014-04-10. Archived from the original on 2021-12-21. Retrieved 2016-10-14.
  2. ^ "Bill Trinen on Twitter: "Thanks for all the birthday wishes! Wasn't expecting that!"". Twitter. 2015-08-21. Retrieved 2016-10-14.
  3. ^ Sarkar, Samit (July 24, 2009). "Interview: Bill Trinen on Wii Sports Resorts". Destructoid. Retrieved January 16, 2014.
  4. ^ a b "Bill Trinen - Vice President, Player & Product - LinkedIn". LinkedIn. Retrieved February 13, 2023.
  5. ^ a b "Interview: Bill Trinen Of Nintendo". Game Informer. October 10, 2003. Archived from the original on December 5, 2003. Retrieved January 16, 2014.
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