Nintendo treating Wario like dirt

[BooDestroyer]

This endless cycle is so exhausting, explaining the many underlying reasons to every new member who rocks up. We need a crash-course on Wario lore to direct people to.

Let me clear up one thing...

The folks who created Wario and Wario Land/Super Mario Land were not the same R&D1 members that headed the WarioWare franchise. Goro Abe and Yoshio Sakamoto were the key figures in the WarioWare franchise, but they played no part in Wario's original legacy. Don't confuse Wario's original R&D1 team with the WarioWare team.
The passing of the torch occurred at Wario Land 4, when Sakamoto and Abe were brought on to contribute. It was the end of an era and the dawn of WarioWare.

So with EPD in the picture, what are they up to now?

 

[Dangerous Duck]

So with EPD in the picture, what are they up to now?

I wish I knew where EPD's priorities currently lay. We haven't had a Wario title since all this shuffling and restructuring, so we've got no idea whom the responsibility falls on for new Wario software. Sakamoto just finished Metroid: Samus Returns, while Goro Abe was last seen with a "special thanks" credit in Mario Party 10.
Perhaps they've deemed Wario too fruitless after the failure of Game & Wario, and simply declined to maintain a team during the merge.

 

[BooDestroyer]

while Goro Abe was last seen with a "special thanks" credit in Mario Party 10.

This was because of Wario's amiibo board, was it?

 

[Dangerous Duck]

This was because of Wario's amiibo board, was it?

Yah, since Goro Abe was the primary director of the WarioWare series, he became the go-to-guy for Wario's representation in Smash Bros Brawl, Smash 4, and MParty 10. This always made me bitter, as he entered the game at the tail-end of the Wario Land series (his first job at Nintendo was as minor programmer for WL4).

I would've preferred a proper advisory role from Wario's creator and original director, Hiroji Kiyotake. Far more suitable for his big entrance into Smash Bros.