It’s hard to overstate just how much of an impact Shigeru Miyamoto has had on Nintendo and the gaming industry at large. Indeed, without him there would be no Mario, Zelda, Donkey Kong, Star Fox, F-Zero, Pikmin… IP that, quite frankly, have made Nintendo what it is today. So it’s hard to imagine just what the company would be like without him.
Thankfully, Miyamoto himself has a pretty good idea.
In an interview with NPR (thanks, Nintendo Everything), Miyamoto spoke about the impact of Nintendo’s games and how they have managed to capture the hearts of so many players, before moving on to what Nintendo might eventually look like without him. Here’s what he had to say:
“You know, I really feel like it’s not going to change. It’s probably going to be the same. There’s, you know, people on the executive team, creators within the company and also people who create Mario, they all have this sense of what it means to be Nintendo. And so it’s not like there’s a lot of different opinions that go back and forth.
“Everyone has an understanding, this kind of shared understanding, of what it is to be Nintendo. And so even when there’s new ideas that come up, there’s always the fact that it’s a new idea, but also the fact that, is it a new idea that really has the essence of Nintendo or not? And I think that’s something that, you know – we have this incredible shared vision, almost a little scary shared vision, about this. So I think there won’t – it’s not going to change.”
Sounds about right. Even looking in from the outside, there’s definitely a sense that Nintendo’s employees all share the same ideology when it comes to the brand and its games.
Something else to consider is Miyamoto’s role within the company at this point in time. While he’s still working creatively in some areas (notably the Super Mario Bros. Movie and potentially Pikmin 4), the creative reins were metaphorically handed over to younger talent quite some time ago, with Miyamoto now serving as one of the representative directors of Nintendo. It’s safe to say that Miyamoto has immense influence within the company to this day, so we’re certain his impact will be felt for generations to come.
What do you make of Miyamoto’s comments on his eventual departure from Nintendo? Let us know your thoughts with a comment below.