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  • Miyamoto to retire and not retire at the same time

    Nintendo's Miyamoto Stepping Down, Working on Smaller Games | Game|Life | Wired.com

    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.
    With the workload this guy has been dealing with for years and how well Mario and Zelda are doing under their current teams, I'm actually looking forward to what Miyamoto does with these smaller projects.

    Hopefully this also means he can get to work on Pikmin 3 again. Its been one elusive fucker these last few years.

  • #2
    Re: Miyamoto to retire and not retire at the same time

    and thus goes the story of how nintendo's hardware got boring.

    Comment


    • #3
      Re: Miyamoto to retire and not retire at the same time

      Careful. Talk like that leads to Malicite's kind of thinking.

      You know, where Sakaguchi should be forcibly rehired by SE and shackled to a desk to make Final Fantasy games.

      Letting Miyamoto back into development actually makes things more interesting. He's been more or less a glorified producer for the last decade outside of Pikmin and Pikmin 2 and lending insights into the development of Zelda, Mario and Metroid otherwise. And a spokesman on the Japanese side.

      Japanese corporate culture has this way of taking a guy and promoting him further and further away from why they were there in the first place - to make games.

      Inafune left Capcom for that reason more than any other.
      Uematsu left SE because he was getting sucked into the game development side when he's a composer.

      It speaks well of Nintendo that they'd let Miyamoto go back to doing what he'd rather be doing. I've seen enough of people leaving various companies because corporate culture stifled their creativity.

      Comment


      • #4
        Re: Miyamoto to retire and not retire at the same time

        HEY!
        sigpic


        "BLAH BLAH BLAH TIDAL WAVE!!!"

        Comment


        • #5
          Re: Miyamoto to retire and not retire at the same time

          Sounds like someone got tired of being in upper management and wanted to get back to the trenches. Good on him.
          Server: Midgardsormr -> Quetzalcoatl -> Valefor
          Occupation: Reckless Red Mage
          Name: Drjones
          Blog: Mediocre Mage

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          • #6
            Re: Miyamoto to retire and not retire at the same time

            Does anyone else get a Steve Jobs-stepping-down-as-Apple-CEO vibe from this? Miyamoto is many things, but one thing he has never been is one to think small. Even when his ideas are in the realm of crackpot territory (see: Wii Music, Vitality Sensor), he still thinks big.

            I don't buy the story about Miyamoto not being allowed to work directly in development. Shigeru Miyamoto could ask for a diamond-crusted yacht and the only thing Nintendo management would ask is "What color?"


            Icemage

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            • #7
              Re: Miyamoto to retire and not retire at the same time

              Exactly, Icemage. It's not that I think Nintendo needs Miyamoto to drive creative hardware development; any number of people could do that. For hell's sake, an team of 8 year olds has all of the imagination it takes to drive hardware development.

              The thing is that Nintendo is willing to take any gamble for Miyamoto because, let's be honest, the success:failure ratio is incredible. Without having to worry about keeping that 8 year old happy, they will be complacent.

              Comment


              • #8
                Re: Miyamoto to retire and not retire at the same time

                As it turns out, Nintendo just confirmed the Wired article had some deep mistranslations in it. Oh well, that was fun for ten hours or so.


                Originally posted by Destructoid
                "Video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto's role at Nintendo is not changing," confirmed Nintendo. "He will continue to be a driving force in Nintendo's development efforts. In discussing his priorities at Nintendo in a media interview, Mr Miyamoto explained how he is encouraging the younger developers at the company to take more initiative and responsibility for developing software.

                "He attempted to convey his priorities moving forward, inclusive of overseeing all video game development and ensuring the quality of all products. Mr Miyamoto also discussed his desire to pursue fresh ideas and experiences of the kind that sparked his initial interest in video games."
                I'm intersted in what those fresh idea will be. With Mario and Zelda's 25th both out of the way, could be a good time to bring in a new IP or two. Or make Pikmin 3.

                Comment


                • #9
                  Re: Miyamoto to retire and not retire at the same time

                  Originally posted by Icemage View Post
                  Does anyone else get a Steve Jobs-stepping-down-as-Apple-CEO vibe from this? Miyamoto is many things, but one thing he has never been is one to think small. Even when his ideas are in the realm of crackpot territory (see: Wii Music, Vitality Sensor), he still thinks big.
                  Miyamoto =/= Kojima?
                  sigpic


                  "BLAH BLAH BLAH TIDAL WAVE!!!"

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Re: Miyamoto to retire and not retire at the same time

                    Originally posted by Omgwtfbbqkitten View Post
                    I'm intersted in what those fresh idea will be. With Mario and Zelda's 25th both out of the way, could be a good time to bring in a new IP or two. Or make Pikmin 3.
                    I can't help but be reminded of this old Smash Bros. Dojo post.

                    Originally posted by Sakurai
                    It’s an incredible number of characters and a group of really well-known series. And to think that they all had their beginnings in Japan...wow!

                    When they’re all lined up like this, it becomes obvious that there is roughly 6-year blank before and after Pikmin. While there have been big series since then like "Animal Crossing," "Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day," and "Wii Sports" it does seem that coming up with a completely new character-driven series has gotten more difficult recently.
                    Originally posted by Armando
                    No one at Square Enix has heard of Occam's Razor.
                    Originally posted by Armando
                    Nintendo always seems to have a legion of haters at the wings ready to jump in and prop up straw men about hardware and gimmicks and casuals.
                    Originally posted by Taskmage
                    GOD IS MIFFED AT AMERICA

                    REPENT SINNERS OR AT LEAST GIVE A NONCOMMITTAL SHRUG

                    GOD IS AMBIVALENT ABOUT FURRIES

                    THE END IS COMING ONE OF THESE DAYS WHEN GOD GETS AROUND TO IT
                    Originally posted by Taskmage
                    However much I am actually smart, I got that way by confronting how stupid I am.
                    Matthew 16:15

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Re: Miyamoto to retire and not retire at the same time

                      So im guessing Chibi Robo, Xenoblade, The Last Story, Pushmo, The Rolling Western, Rhythm Heaven, Flipnote Studio, Steel Diver and Nintendogs are all chopped liver? They're all made by or greatly involve Nintendo teams. Most occurred in the last six to eight years.

                      Just sayin'

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                      • #12
                        Re: Miyamoto to retire and not retire at the same time

                        He said "character-driven." That post is also from 2008, Xenoblade came out in 2010 and TLS in 2011. Both games are only published by Nintendo, not developed, unless you want to consider Monolith Soft part of Nintendo proper, but I doubt Nintendo sees it that way.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Re: Miyamoto to retire and not retire at the same time

                          Monolith Soft, Incorporated or MLSI (株式会社モノリスソフト Kabushiki-Gaisha Monorisu Sofuto?) is a Japanese entertainment company that has created video games for the PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube, Wii, Nintendo DS, and cell phones. The company was founded on October 1, 1999 by producer Hirohide Sugiura after he left Square Co. and accepted an investment from Namco.[2] As of May 6, 2007, Nintendo owns controlling interest in the company after Namco Bandai sold 80% of its 96% stake in Monolith Soft to Nintendo. This went into effect May 1, 2007.[3] It is now a first-party developer for Nintendo.
                          Monolith Soft - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

                          In addition to making Xenoblade and Soma Bringer, Monolith Soft also collaborated with the Zelda team on Skyward Sword. They are absolutely first party.

                          Additionally, "character-driven" is wholly bullshit qualifier for new IPs. A new character does not mean an original game concept and there are too many people that think setting that low or a bar for an new IP is good enough. We've seen plenty of games flounder for that reason. I'd rather have a familiar character selling me new concepts than a new character selling me familiar concepts. Nintendo's very good at the former and they do new IPs with new concepts.

                          Pushmo and Rolling Western are most certainly going to weasel their way into the next Smash Bros somehow, count on it.
                          Last edited by Omgwtfbbqkitten; 12-26-2011, 12:01 AM.

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Re: Miyamoto to retire and not retire at the same time

                            Originally posted by Omgwtfbbqkitten View Post
                            Additionally, "character-driven" is wholly bullshit qualifier for new IPs. A new character does not mean an original game concept and there are too many people that think setting that low or a bar for an new IP is good enough. We've seen plenty of games flounder for that reason. I'd rather have a familiar character selling me new concepts than a new character selling me familiar concepts. Nintendo's very good at the former and they do new IPs with new concepts.
                            Note that Sakurai was simply explaining the relatively large gap on the character timetable before (Pokémon) and after (relative to 2008) Olimar's debut in Pikmin. He points out that new IPs have been quite successful regardless, but in terms of new potential characters, well . . . you yourself showed a larger demand for characters with whom you're already familiar with.

                            The Wii's debut in particular made a point of making the player the center of attention, between motion control games and the Miis.
                            Originally posted by Armando
                            No one at Square Enix has heard of Occam's Razor.
                            Originally posted by Armando
                            Nintendo always seems to have a legion of haters at the wings ready to jump in and prop up straw men about hardware and gimmicks and casuals.
                            Originally posted by Taskmage
                            GOD IS MIFFED AT AMERICA

                            REPENT SINNERS OR AT LEAST GIVE A NONCOMMITTAL SHRUG

                            GOD IS AMBIVALENT ABOUT FURRIES

                            THE END IS COMING ONE OF THESE DAYS WHEN GOD GETS AROUND TO IT
                            Originally posted by Taskmage
                            However much I am actually smart, I got that way by confronting how stupid I am.
                            Matthew 16:15

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Re: Miyamoto to retire and not retire at the same time

                              Yeah, but so many people go on about new IPs with new characters being enough it makes me roll my eyes. Nothing good comes of a new IP with no new real ideas behind it. I don't just want to be sold a character, but a concept as well.

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