I mean, for all the hand-wringing Oblivion is doing here on behalf of the staff who have been with the series for a long time, Aonuma was a lot more of a kick in the balls for any grunts hanging around hoping for promotion. Miyamoto liked one low-key game the guy did and then basically brought him in and immediately started grooming him to take over the series. That was far more shocking than giving a shot at a console title to the guy who has done all of the portable Zelda games except the first one, and the most recent one (which failed).
I also don't think it's that big of a deal because I trust Miyamoto's judgment. If somebody on the Zelda team prior to Aonuma was capable of directing the franchise to Miyamoto's standards, Miyamoto would have given him the reigns. But there wasn't, and thus Aonuma.
Koizumi has hopefully learned his lesson with regards to putting too much story in a Mario game, and will keep it to Mario Galaxy levels at a maximum in the future, but aside from that? In my opinion, the guy out-Miyamoto'd Miyamoto with regards to 3D Mario, and I have no doubt he'll do fine in the future.
Agreed here. SMG was more Mario than Sunshine or 64 IMO.
As for what Masahiro Sakurai is doing with Kid Icarus, the IP is all but a blank slate, with just one (fucking awful) game to its mythos.
Well two really, including the GB game that no one bought.
I don't want to turn this into a debate since I agree with you for the most part, but there wasn't anything wrong with Kid Icarus. The controls were good, the difficulty was just right, it had great graphics and music, and some neat gameplay ideas. It deserved a Super Metroid-like sequel to expand on it, IMO.
I honestly think it will be good in the long run for Nintendo when Miyamoto retires. He's done a good job grooming and choosing new employees, but I think on the whole, as a creative force, the entire company is very much constrained by what Miyamoto thinks is best. It never used to be that way, and I think it has really narrowed Nintendo's output since the situation came about.
Agreed but I'm more cautious about it... I think Nintendo might lose something when Miyamoto leaves, same as Apple and Jobs. Miyamoto has done a much better job grooming the next generation (who in reality are still like 40/50 years old) than Jobs, but Miyamoto (and Gunpei, but he's been gone for a while) made Nintendo what it is today. (Yamauchi gets credit for wisely not interfering with either of them, and being a shrewd business guy of course.) But between Wii Music and the DKCR roll thing, my previously-unwavering faith in his judgment is in fact wavering slightly. I still think when he gets hands-on with one of his babies it's a great thing for the game, as he knows when to cut the bullshit and he does have unbelievable game design insight, but his own original ideas or tips for distant teams he's not really involved in might not be perfectly up to snuff.
So who knows. We'll find out eventually of course, what happens to a Nintendo without Miyamoto.
