Shigeru Miyamoto reflects on Wii, says it was special to him

Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto reflected on Wii in a recent interview and mentioned that the console was particularly special to him.

While speaking with IGN, he said that the goal he and late Nintendo president Satoru Iwata had was to create something that anyone can play, regardless of their experience of games. Miyamoto noted how it makes him “happy to think that the population of people that play games increased because of the Wii.” That was in part thanks to the Wii Remote – a controller that anyone could use and understand fairly quickly.

Miyamoto shared the following in that IGN interview:

The Wii is special to me. At the time, I and [former Nintendo president Satoru] Iwata felt that games were becoming something specifically for gamers and we wanted to change that by creating something that could be experienced by anybody.

That was the driving force behind the Wii, and it was something that we were kind of able to actually accomplish. Looking at the photos of families playing together, it makes me happy to think that the population of people that play games increased because of the Wii.

Wii ended up becoming one of Nintendo’s most successful consoles. 103.60 million units were sold, which was more than the NES, SNES, N64, and GameCube – as well as the Game Boy Advance and 3DS.

Miyamoto isn’t as involved with games these days, but is still very much an integral part of Nintendo. One area in which he’s focusing on is movies – The Super Mario Bros. Movie previously released and we’re getting a sequel next year.