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Shigeru Miyamoto

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When you think about Nintendo, serious themes probably don’t come to mind. The company doesn’t tend to release titles that explore sadness, loss, and grief.

During an interview with The New Yorker, Nintendo developer Shigeru Miyamoto said that “passive media is much better suited to take on those themes.” As far as the Big N is concerned, he mentioned that the company’s games “are designed to provide a warm feeling; everyone is able to enjoy their time playing or watching.” Given that, and how Nintendo is about putting smiles on players’ faces, he doesn’t regret being able to tackle the more serious kinds of topics.

Miyamoto’s full words:

As the creator of Nintendo’s biggest franchises, Shigeru Miyamoto holds a lot of power at Nintendo. There’s a lot that comes his way, plenty he gives feedback on, and projects that require his approval. Ultimately, he’s a boss for a lot of employees at Nintendo.

So what kind of boss is Miyamoto? He addressed that very topic during an interview with The New Yorker, stating:

If there’s one type of genre Nintendo doesn’t really dabble with, it’d be shooters. The company has Splatoon, but that’s mostly it. That comes in contrast to the industry as a whole which does offer a high amount of games involving guns and shooting.

Shigeru Miyamoto was asked about that topic in an interview with The New Yorker. He admitted that there’s an inherent joy in hitting a target, but he has “some resistance to focusing on this single source of pleasure.” Although it’s not a bad thing that studios focus on that mechanic, he feels “it’s not ideal to have everybody doing it just because that kind of game sells well.” Miyamoto also believes it’d “be great if developers found new ways to elicit joy in their players.”

Miyamoto’s full words:

Shigeru Miyamoto is the creator of some legendary franchises like Mario and Zelda. That doesn’t mean his kids only played Nintendo games, however. Miyamoto said in a recent interview with The New Yorker that they also played a lot of SEGA titles like Out Run and Harrier. Rather than being jealous, he said this inspired him to try harder, “so that they preferred the ones I made.”

Miyamoto said that his children didn’t care much about his job and have “never felt pressure to follow a certain path or to be a certain way”, adding: “I don’t think that they have felt any undue burden because of who their father is.”

Miyamoto also touched on the topic of having kids maintain a healthy relationship with games and ensuring that they don’t play too long. He said on that front:

Super Mario 64

Nintendo fans that have kept up with the history of Mario know that at one point, Luigi was going to be playable in Super Mario 64. The team originally hoped to make multiplayer possible, but it just wasn’t technically feasible in the end.

Shigeru Miyamoto opened up a bit about Super Mario 64’s development in an interview with The Guardian. Regarding limitations the team faced, Miyamoto said:

The Washington Post recently spoke with four key developers behind the Mario franchise. Shigeru Miyamoto, Takashi Tezuka, Yoshiaki Koizumi, and Kenta Motokura spoke about the different entries and series in general.

Here’s a roundup for some of their comments:

Shigeru Miyamoto

As part of Super Mario’s 35th anniversary, CNN was able to speak with some of the series’ creators. Among them was Shigeru Miyamoto, who opened up about why the character was made a plumber.

Miyamoto stated:

Netflix has a new video game documentary coming out next week. In the final episode, there’s talk about the relationship between Nintendo and Argonaut Software and the making of Star Fox on the SNES. Dylan Cuthbert and Giles Goddard, two developers who worked on the game, spoke about the development experience.

According to Goddard, the Big N “never had anybody outside Nintendo working in the building. They actually made a separate office for us in one room on our own, basically segregated out.”

We also have some interesting words from Cuthbert, who said that famous developer Shigeru Miyamoto was only allowed to smoke in the area that Star Fox was being developed. Cuthbert noted during the episode:

Former Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime had plenty of meetings with Shigeru Miyamoto over the years while working at the company. However, their very first encounter was understandably memorable. Reggie very much knew about Miyamoto and his historic career, but Miyamoto had no idea who Reggie was at the time.

Reggie recounted the story of meeting Miyamoto during an episode of the Talking Games podcast. It came about early on in his career when he was being shown for the DS for the first time. Reggie had made a comment about the importance of the handheld’s touch screen without realizing Miyamoto was in the room. After this, he quickly became aware that the legendary game designer heard what he said, and Reggie’s knees began to shake. Fortunately, Miyamoto liked Reggie’s comment, and he was able to get off on the right foot.

That’s only a summary of the story. Here’s the full transcript from the podcast:

Before Rockstar San Diego became what it is today – with acclaimed games like Red Dead Redemption under its belt – the team was previously known as Angel Studios. At one point, an opportunity arose in which Nintendo was almost involved with one of their projects. Shigeru Miyamoto actually stopped by the studio to check out the game, which ended up being scrapped in the end.

Founder Diego Angel spoke about the experience in an interview with Polygon. The game in question was Buggy Boogie, a project for the N64. Not much is known about the project, but it was previously stated by former software director Clinton Keith that it involved “vehicles that would eat other vehicles and adopt their powers and morph.”

As for meeting with Miyamoto, Angel told Polygon:


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