Miyamoto on lack of new Nintendo franchises
Mario, Zelda, Metroid, and Donkey Kong are just a few of the well-known names that we seen from Nintendo regularly. But some fans and critics have called for the company to make something new and come out with never-before-seen IPs.
In Shigeru Miyamoto’s opinion, it makes sense to rely on Nintendo’s well-regarded series. He also believes that the likes of Nintendogs, Brain Age, and Wii Fit are all new franchises because they offer original experiences. While most may not see it this way because they lack a symbolic character, Miyamoto said that these titles “are actually contributing to our sales.”
Also, it is sometimes said that Nintendo has recently had no new franchises. At E3 this year, some said that Nintendo is always showing the same series of games, but this is because we mainly featured the characters from our franchises in our exhibition booth. There were six featured areas of our franchises in our booth, including Zelda, Mario and Donkey Kong, and the visitors were able to take commemorative photos with these characters. Considering that visitors will not enjoy less well-known franchises in such areas, we did it in this way, which resulted in such a criticism, I think. On the other hand, I think it is one of our advantages to have such franchises. When some young in-house developers come up with an idea of a new franchise, I say that creating a new character does not necessarily mean creating a new franchise. In my view, a new way of playing or new use of media is necessary for a “new product” and creating a character is not the first thing to do. In this sense, “nintendogs,” “Brain Age” and “Wii Fit” are all new franchises. Few people see it this way because these games have no symbolic “character” like the existence of Mario, but they are actually contributing to our sales. I would like to continue developing video games with the view of entertaining a wide variety of people including the existing video game fans. Thank you so much for your support.
