Miyamoto Feels Nintendo Doesn’t Have to Make Games that are Relevant to People’s Daily Lives

Shigeru Miyamoto needs no introduction to Zelda fans. The man not only created the series we all enjoy to this day, he is often considered one of the godfathers of modern video games. More than anyone else in the entire company, Miyamoto embodies who Nintendo is. He is also a member of the board, so his thoughts on what Nintendo can and can’t do carry a lot of weight both with the fans and within the company itself. As such, his most recent remarks seem to suggest that games such as The Legend of Zelda, Pikmin, or even Metroid are the sorts of games Nintendo will be focusing on in the future. Here is part of what he said to Edge Magazine when talking about gamers today and where Nintendo should be focusing their attention:

“[These are] the sort of people who, for example, might want to watch a movie. They might want to go to Disneyland. Their attitude is, ‘okay, I am the customer. You are supposed to entertain me.’ It’s kind of a passive attitude they’re taking, and to me it’s kind of a pathetic thing. They do not know how interesting it is if you move one step further and try to challenge yourself [with more advanced games].

Fortunately, because of the spread of smart devices, people take games for granted now. It’s a good thing for us, because we do not have to worry about making games something that are relevant to general people’s daily lives.” — Shigeru Miyamoto

This is a refreshing attitude to many out there, especially as calls continue to be made for Nintendo to expand into mobile with their content. It’s also a rather bold and serious tone out of Miyamoto that we aren’t accustomed to seeing—it almost reminds me of the old Sega and Nintendo console wars… except this war seems to be at what the target audience for games Nintendo crafts should be. He seems frustrated that what some may call “casual gamers” tend to never move beyond that—they play games occasionally but don’t seem to ever move on to bigger and better things within the gaming industry.

Something tells me the original intent of the Wii and DS was to get the casual gamers to come on board and convert them—but that conversion doesn’t seemed to have worked the way Nintendo had hoped, and instead they have remained casual consumers who simply moved on to new devices. Nintendo’s game quality certainly stands out even more these days—the question is if a renewed focus on the consumers that truly want more out of gaming is going to show positive growth for them as a company. We can only hope so. All they can do now is keeping pushing out great titles—we’ll understand the true vision once they announce new hardware in a few years. This may explain too why Nintendo was so eager for Bayonetta and Devil’s Third to join them. They seem to be renewing the focus on core games, rather than an expanded audience that doesn’t stick around.

What does this mean for the future of

Zelda? I think we’re already getting a pretty clear picture for that. Think about this: For the Wii U… we’ll have three straight years with “bigger” Zelda game releases on the platform. The Wind Waker HD in 2013, Hyrule Warriors this year, and Zelda U in 2015. It’s safe to assume that The Legend of Zelda is one of the bell cows Nintendo is using to keep driving home the core audience Nintendo wants to capture. We know right now Miyamoto is actually working some on the next Star Fox.

Source: Gamnesia