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Miyamoto Steps Down As Nintendo Game Design Head
RobinEggs writes "Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto, the creator and producer of the Zelda and Mario franchises among other works, is stepping down at Nintendo. After personally managing Nintendo's blockbuster franchises for ~20 years, Miyamoto said today: 'What I really want to do is be in the forefront of game development once again myself. 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.'" Update: 12/08 21:35 GMT by T : Note that Nintendo is careful to say that this is not retirement, even if Miyamoto's role at Nintendo changes.
Reading the headline, I was quite sad, but the summary makes me excited for what he's going to come out with! Rock on Miyamoto!
Nintendo already came out and said he was not stepping down. slashdot is behind like always
Nintendo has apparently already denied this.
http://spong.com/article/25917/Nintendo-Strongly-Denies-Miyamoto-Retirement
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/114616-Miyamoto-is-Not-Stepping-Down
http://wii.ign.com/articles/121/1214255p1.html
Word from Nintendo is that Miyamoto is NOT stepping down and this was a misinterpretation.
He probably saw minecraft's influence.. as much as he helped totally change gaming by evolving Mario, Link from 2d ORIGINALS with *true* gameplay that has lasted the test of time (SMB1,2,3 & Link to the Past), and then moving Mario, Link into 3D very successfully.. he probably saw that one dev DOES has the power to affect gaming and gameplay (please, not talking about angry birds and crap like that).
Mr. Miyamoto, please make some cool original stuff like Minecraft did. Blaze the trail !
It's sad when you can claim a better understanding of culture and history exists in a cesspit like 4chan, and be correct.
I did. But this is the new Slashdot. I doubt many people here have read The Book of Five Rings or are interested in Japanese culture. Your would have gotten a better response on 4chan.
So let me get this straight. The "new Slashdot" actually respects the old-school and can recognize the names of people responsible for some of the best of what Japanese gaming has to offer (and what saved the US video game market after the crash). And... that's somehow NOT an interest in Japanese culture, even peripherally? And, when given the name of the creator of the Mario and Legend of Zelda series, amongst the most famous video games in the history of the artform, in the context of Nintendo, we were supposed to pull two wholly unrelated names out of our asses?
I... what? It... how does that even... are you high? Like, right now? That has to be one of the most surreal trollings I've seen in ages.
My reward for being a good designer/coder was to oversee a large design/code team. I miss designing/coding.
actually I consider obsessions with japanese culture to be an extension of inferiority complex that comes from low self esteem. A slashdot without so much of that is a benefit. the people i've known like that were truly pathetic as they'd put japan on a pedestal and try their damnedest to act, think, and look like stereotypical japanese. of course they weren't fooling anyone and just ended up looking like total idiots. I'd also think that a genuine japanese would find this behavior somewhat offensive.
It's funny, we say the same thing about American culture in Asia.
"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."
This coupled with other statements regarding "retirement" to me structure a rather specific narrative. Perhaps "burnt out" is a rather strong statement but all the same he's clearly stating he wants to slow down and play the role of the sage elder/grandpa.
I took it more as evidence that managing huge multi-year projects is not as fun as building something with more immediate turnaround times. Skyward Sword, from what I've heard, is the culmination of a longstanding dream of Miyamoto's to build a Zelda game where you could actually control the sword and shield instead of just mashing thumbs. But it took years to complete, and I bet Miyamoto spent most of that time dealing with management-type work rather than getting into the nitty gritty of creating a game.
He's a gaming kind of guy, and he's been big on new ideas over the course of his career, so if he gets out of managing huge projects and gets back into designing and making smaller games, I predict an increase in the number of interesting ideas that Nintendo can implement. I heard that Nintendo's share price took a dip on this news, but I think that's only because analysts hadn't really digested this -- sure, if Miyamoto left Nintendo, that'd be bad; but if he's getting back into active game design, that can only be a big plus, in my eyes anyway.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
Also, outside of Japan people are usually referred to by their family name and Miyamoto Musashi is the most famous person with the Miyamoto family name.
However, in all fairness, it is rather unlikely that a samurai who spent the last 366 years being dead would be a game design head at Nintendo.
Real life is overrated.