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Miyamoto Increasingly Involved In Hardware Design
Discussing how his role at Nintendo has evolved over the years, Shigeru Miyamoto has told us that his style of making games has remained fairly consistent, but that he now commands a much greater influence on the development of hardware than in the past.
“I don’t feel that my style of making videogames has changed so much,” Miyamoto said in our interview with him which features in our next issue, out in UK shops tomorrow. “Over the years, I’ve tended to work on a project more deeply as the development phase gets closer to completion. The only difference is that when we’re working on something really new like Nintendogs or Wii Music, I tend to be very deeply involved a lot earlier. For the so-called ‘serious titles’ my involvement tends to be much greater towards the latter stage.
“It might surprise you, but if I can think of any really significant change in my role over time, I’d probably say it’s my involvement with hardware design,” he added. “A long time ago, my role in designing the actual hardware was really limited – mostly it was down to designing the controller, or the controlling interface, or some of those special features that you want the hardware to include on the software side, to make design and development more efficient. It was all about simply making better software. But I think, probably from around the time of the DS, my involvement with hardware has significantly changed. With that project and onwards, I’ve been able to significantly oversee the overall development of the hardware as well as keeping an eye on the software side of things.”
Elsewhere in the interview, which can be found in the Christmas issue of Edge, E209, Miyamoto discusses his typical day at the office, Nintendo’s recruitment processes, and how he created New Super Mario Bros Wii so that any Wii Fit player can feel right at home in it.
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Copyright 2006 - 2009 Future Publishing Limited, Beauford Court 30 Monmouth Street Bath, UK BA1 2BW
England and Wales company registration number 2008885
I strongly disagree. Miyamoto, same as always, provides a wonderful entry into the world of gaming. Yes, the core market has moved on, but so what? We're well taken care of. Miyamoto, on the other hand, is there welcoming new people in. Some folks will move on, some won't, but overall I believe its healthier for the industry that he is around.
The market has grown and matured to the point where only addressing core gamers is insufficient. We have grown with the games market, this is true, but its also growing with us. Especially since many of us older gamers have children of our own - far too young fore core-market titles, but will find Miyamoto's games to be a perfect fit. Many of us have family and significant others who we would enjoy playing games with, but not GTA or the latest COD.
The core market needs to understand and realize that we're not the center of the universe anymore, for better and worse. If anything, the games market is more like the movie, television and book markets (or even anime in Japan) - there's something for everyone - moreso now than ever.
I'd argue this point as well. My three boys have all grown up with video games. They've almost progressed beyond the Nintendo demographic, and my oldest is only 11. The younger two trail behind a bit in their tastes, but not by much.
Although Im only 18 I too completely agree. When I was younger Miyamoto was like my gaming god. I would have sacrificed a thousand christian children for that man. I loved him more than my own mother. And how was was my universal appraise rewarded? With absolutley incredible games. As I got older though I saw in him a humbled game designer, always letting his work do the talking for him. It seems now though that his work has, like the man himself, ran out of creative things to say because nowadays Miyamoto san just resides himself to the casual market, throwing out endless streams of blue ocean bollacks that make my head spin and my lungs fill up with bull shit.
He needs to get back in touch with not just the genuine gamers out in the world, but more importantly the real gamer inside of him because as much as it pains me to think about it the guys pretty much running out of steam and to be honest, theres only so long one man can run on the praise of blind nintendo gamers.
Not that it would ever happen but like Mystakill, I think it would be really interesting to see what the would do with hardware like the XBox 360 or PS3.
Somebody needs to get Miyamoto an Xbox 360 or a PS3 to see what games *should* look like. Our Wii gets the least usage of the three due to its asstacular graphics and overabundance of shovelware with tacked-on motion controls. My kids will break it out every once in awhile when a AAA title comes out, but then it goes back to collecting dust for months in between. I rarely touch it myself anymore.
The WiiHD/Wii2 will have to be significantly better before I'd consider buying another Nintendo console the next time around.
I totally agree with you, mate. This guy has become so disconnected from what gamers want that it's unreal.