He also encourages new staff members to work on the big franchises.
At the end of last year, there was a frenzy over legendary Nintendo game designer Shigeru Miyamoto allegedly saying he would step down from his position at the company. It turned out to be a misinterpretationof comments made during an interview, but something we learned was that Miyamoto was more interested in nurturing new talent rather than being tied down to the lengthy development times of established franchises.In a recent investor’s briefing, Miyamoto reaffirmed his new thinking, and it appears that taking a step back and allowing younger blood to take the reigns of Nintendo’s big hitters is proving successful. “We have already come to the stage where quality software titles with a high completion level have been developed without my active involvement,” says Miyamoto. Nintendo President Satoru Iwata reinforced these statements: “We are…observing what happens if we assign particular work to people who have never done such work before. So far, we have observed more solid results than originally anticipated.”
Now that Miyamoto has more breathing room at the company, he is more than ever looking for ideas for Nintendo’s next big thing. “I am spending more time than before on finding new ideas for new developments rather than focusing my energy on work in my (development) teams in order to solidify the contents of (existing) franchise titles. After all, developing big hit titles must be the solution. I am acting with the understanding that one big hit title can change multiple phases of a situation in the entertainment business, and I feel that finding such one big hit is my basic job.”
Do you think Miyamoto can come up with a new IP to rival Mario or Zelda?
Source: Nintendo Life