REDWOOD CITY, Calif. — The creator of Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda will step down from his current position at Nintendo but remain with the company to work on smaller, more personal projects, Wired.com has learned.
In an exclusive interview with Wired.com on Wednesday, the 59-year-old head of Nintendo’s game design department said that he will move away from supervising the development of massive games like this year’s Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword and Super Mario 3D Land, passing the torch to the younger designers in the company and working on projects that won’t take as long to complete.
“Inside our office, I’ve been recently declaring, ‘I’m going to retire, I’m going to retire,’” Miyamoto said through his interpreter. “I’m not saying that I’m going to retire from game development altogether. What I mean by retiring is, retiring from my current position.”
“What I really want to do is be in the forefront of game development once again myself,” Miyamoto said. “Probably working on a smaller project with even younger developers. Or I might be interested in making something that I can make myself, by myself. Something really small.”
Miyamoto said that he’s hoping to start work on a project in 2012, and hopefully show the game off publicly within the year.
“In other words, I’m not intending to start from things that require a five-year development time,” he said.
Miyamoto, whose creations propelled Nintendo to worldwide prominence beginning with 1981′s arcade game Donkey Kong and who is generally recognized as the world’s most influential and creative game designer, said he felt comfortable stepping away from supervising the Mario and Zelda games because his staff has done such a good job with this year’s critically acclaimed entries in both series.
“I’m saying this because I have a solid reaction from the existing teams,” he said. “I was able to nurture the developers inside Nintendo who were able to create something like this or something like that,” he said, gesturing to banners in the interview room in Nintendo’s office that showed the logos of Skyward Sword and Mario 3D Land.
The reason Miyamoto keeps telling the younger developers that he’s going to retire is to send the message that he won’t always be around for them to work with.
“The reason why I’m stressing that is that unless I say that I’m retiring, I cannot nurture the young developers,” he said. “After all, if I’m there in my position as it is, then there’s always kind of a relationship. And the young guys are always kind of in a situation where they have to listen to my ideas. But I need some people who are growing up much more than today.”
As for himself, Miyamoto seemed eager to get to work on his new ideas with a smaller, younger staff.
“Anyway, I’m interested in doing a variety of many other things,” he said with his usual cryptic smile.
Wired.com’s full interview with Miyamoto, including his thoughts on Skyward Sword, making Mario Kart 7 with a Western development team, 3-D gaming, cell phones and more on the future of games, will be published next week.
Maybe Nintendo can finally create new IPs and not regurgitate their 30 year old franchises.
Ah who am I kidding.
Maybe Nintendo can finally create new IPs and not regurgitate their 30 year old franchises.
Ah who am I kidding.
Stick to what sells. Nintendo franchises sell. It's not hard to understand why main Nintendo teams hardly ever branch out and make truly NEW games.
They're role as a publisher needs to expand for that to happen.
Might kill Cave too if they don't start making some arcade/console shooters soon. Actually I'd rather see Cave die than have them go on to become a visual novel / phone / handheld developer. Go out with some dignity. :'(
Probably embarrassed about Skyward Sword
Anyhow, this gen sucks. Killed IREM, Killed Pandemic, Killed Miyamoto, Killed SquareEnix, Killed Konami, Killed Capcom, and it's looking like it killed Team Ico.
Might kill Cave too if they don't start making some arcade/console shooters soon. Actually I'd rather see Cave die than have them go on to become a visual novel / phone / handheld developer. Go out with some dignity. :'(
they also talked about making games for kintect so at least there's that. I'm sure nin2 jump brain turned out real awesome.
They considered Nin2 Jump a success actually (I'm not sure why, it looks like it sold horribly). But at least that game was only $5, and had a fun score attack mode (with a scoring system designed by Ichimura, of Ketsui/Death Smiles fame).
Instant Brain on the other hand seems to have bombed. Thankfully. But I'm pretty sure someone said they're going to keep making VNs... probably because they take no effort and cost little money. :-\
Yup, this is the worst generation pre-NES. Even though I don't know who Pandemic is.
a shitty developer mourned by no oneHe made that one game that one time though
Miyamoto's greatest game is Doki Doki Panic :smug
Nintendo says Wired story on Miyamoto a misunderstanding, After shares dip 2%tsk tsk journalism
Nothing but good can come of this.Yes. I selfishly want him to make a few more concepts from the scratch before he finally does retire.
Probably embarrassed about Skyward Sword
Anyhow, this gen sucks. Killed IREM, Killed Pandemic, Killed Miyamoto, Killed SquareEnix, Killed Konami, Killed Capcom, and it's looking like it killed Team Ico.
Great career. Simply the best.I would argue that Toru Iwatani has more of a "creating games from craziness" vibe than moto san
"I'm retiring! Except when I am not retiring, then I am retiring! I like the way the word sounds. Retiring. Sometimes, when I am retiring or not, I like to stretch out at my desk and just stare at the tops of my shiny shoes, and think about how fun it would be to retire and just shine shoes all day! And then it hit me - wouldn't that be a fun activity, to retire and shine all the shoes of our biggest game stars? Do you like toast? I love toast. I like it with a thin layer of grape jelly. Makes it shiny, like shoes. Sometimes it doesn't taste like grape, it tastes like purple. I can't sleep unless I've had my purple. Eating jelly toast, shining shoes, retiring.":lol :lol :lol
FALL 2012
MARIO JELLY SHOESHINE RETIREMENT PARTY FOR WII U
I'm no Nintendo fan, but I think overall this is good news. Miyamoto didn't seem to do well as a general overseer. I like the idea of him doing something smaller and different. Likewise, I like the idea of Nintendo's younger developers being able to do stuff without an outdated old man making them change things.WHAT YOU GAVE THIS CHARACTER A NAME? DID I NOT SAY NO STORY IN THIS GAME?
Nah man we need more epic stories by 3rd-rate fanfiction writers with deep character development and unexpected plot twists!