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Shigeru Miyamoto

Shigeru Miyamoto not retiring

Shigeru Miyamoto just celebrated his 71st birthday last month, but retirement still doesn’t seem to be on his mind.

Miyamoto, the creator of hit franchises like Mario and The Legend of Zelda, was asked if he’s ever tempted to retire in an interview with The Guardian. He’s spent well over four decades working at Nintendo.

Charles Martinet Shigeru Miyamoto Mario

Nintendo has dropped a video that it previously teased in which Shigeru Miyamoto and Charles Martinet talk about the change of Mario’s voice actor. It was posted on social media a short while ago.

Martinet, who voiced Mario and other characters from Nintendo for decades, is now a Mario Ambassador. Miyamoto said that “in this role Charles will continue to travel around the world and meet fans, performing the familiar voices at events, signing autographs, and enjoying interacting with you all.”

Elephant Mario Shigeru Miyamoto Mario Wonder

When it comes to the big Nintendo franchises like Mario, many fans tend to be curious as to how much Shigeru Miyamoto is involved. Miyamoto is one of the most important people at the company as the creator of various characters and franchises. Even if he’s not quite as hands-on as he used to be, he still contributes to some projects.

As for Super Mario Bros. Wonder, producer Takashi Tezuka said Miyamoto would “give some opinions” and “make comments here and there”. Tezuka said in an interview with IGN:

In the latest developer interview published for Pikmin 4 today, Shigeru Miyamoto said that he feels “Pikmin to be Nintendo’s most global characters.”

Miyamoto’s comments came about when asked what Pikmin means to him. He expressed wanting “people to have this real sense that Pikmin are all around us, that they aren’t just fantasy creatures.” Also brought up is how Mario is strictly limited to his world, but Miyamoto believes Nintendo has “finally reached a point where people can find Pikmin in various places, not just in their imaginations.”

Pikmin 4 Oatchi

The space dog Oatchi is a brand new addition for Pikmin 4, and Nintendo has now discussed its origins while also providing other interesting insight. This comes as part of an official interview published today.

The company’s Yuji Kando revealed that one idea that came about early on was letting players control a Bulborb. Continuing on from that, Nintendo then considered letting players “ride and control various creatures in the story”. However, “it became difficult to weave it all into a coherent game.” Oatchi was born from these ideas.

Shigeru Miyamoto Pikmin 4

In a new interview published today, Shigeru Miyamoto commented on the Pikmin series and said he’s wondered why the games haven’t sold more and why people think they’re so difficult. 

For Pikmin 4, it sound like Nintendo wanted to make the game as approachable as possible. The company’s Yuji Kando said the team “prioritized ease of play and experimented with making the controls easy enough for those who aren’t used to playing games.” Camera and AI improvements were a focus as well. Miyamoto added that Nintendo wanted to “retain the depth of gameplay that makes Pikmin so interesting, while providing the functional support to address the challenges around controls.”

Here’s the full interview excerpt:

Pikmin origins concept art N64

The original developers behind Pikmin have discussed the game’s origins, including how it was originally being developed for the N64.

Masamichi Abe, who was director at the time, said in a new interview published today that “discussion of this project started during the transition from Super NES to Nintendo 64, so we had a strong aspiration to utilize its ability to display a large number of characters on screen.” Shigefumi Hino, who also was director, added that it was originally “envisioned a game that would control a lot of characters with AI.” The interview includes a number of concept art / images as well, and character designer Junji Morii talked about being inspired by Tim Burton.

Nintendo 2023 salaries Shuntaro Furukawa Shigeru Miyamoto

Nintendo’s latest annual report for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2023, which was just issued today, outlines the salaries of the company’s top directors including president Shuntaro Furukawa and Shigeru Miyamoto.

As the head of Nintendo, Furukawa earns the most with a salary of $2.51 million. Miyamoto follows in second with $2.02 million. The rest of the list rounds out with Shinya Takahashi (one of the hosts in the last Nintendo Direct) at $1.61 million, Satoru Shibata at $1.91 million, and Ko Shiota at $910,000. Note that these figures were converted from yen.

Mario movie backstory

Mario games are always about the gameplay, with the story often having a minimal impact. However, with The Super Mario Bros. Movie, the plot and its characters needed to take center stage. This created an interesting dilemma of sorts for Nintendo.

If you’ve seen The Super Mario Bros. Movie or any of its trailers, you obviously know that there’s more to Mario compared to the games – including a bit of a backstory. But Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto said Nintendo felt some hesitation there since “we want Mario to be without restrictions” and going into more of his character “might become a disadvantage for future games.”

Dr Mario Shigeru Miyamoto

In the words of Shigeru Miyamoto, Dr. Mario is a character that shouldn’t be trusted.

IGN recently spoke with the Mario creator as part of an interview for The Super Mario Bros. Movie. Miyamoto talked about how the film brought out a new side of the character as an everyman hero. However, when it comes to Dr. Mario, he’s a character shrouded in shadiness.


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