Shigeru Miyamoto, the veteran Nintendo designer best known for creating Mario and The Legend of Zelda, told Japanese magazine Famitsu that he has no immediate plans to return to directing large-scale games.
The interview, published this week, comes as Miyamoto continues to shift focus from hands-on game direction to film projects and Universal Studios' Super Nintendo World theme-park efforts.
Miyamoto has held prominent creative roles at Nintendo for decades and has recently worked with external partners on titles such as Pikmin Bloom, developed by Niantic and released for iOS and Android in November 2021.
On the prospect of directing games again, Miyamoto said he is not actively thinking about taking the helm of a major project.
He explained that he became involved with Pikmin Bloom because he wanted to try making something himself, and that if a theme interests him and allows for creative experimentation, he might consider directing again.
He also noted the practical realities of modern development, observing that modern game projects often require very large teams and that films are similarly large productions with producers and crew managing day-to-day logistics.
Asked whether there is a particular project he wants to pursue, Miyamoto told Famitsu he has no specific plan to see out on his own.
He said he would welcome initiatives that attract broad participation — even joking that his family thinks he should slow down — but emphasized he does not feel compelled to shepherd a single long-term project to completion.
Reflecting on the future, Miyamoto expressed a simple wish for continuity: he hopes the teams he works with can continue without major problems.
He framed it in pragmatic terms, reminding colleagues to prepare for the unexpected and to keep projects running smoothly.
One of the more detailed portions of the interview covered Miis — Nintendo's compact avatar format first popularized on the Wii.
Miyamoto praised the creativity of Western Mii creators, and floated the idea of linking Miis to Nintendo Accounts so users could collect and share them more widely.
He highlighted Miis' low memory footprint, saying the avatars are composed of only a few hundred bytes due to design choices made to fit many characters into limited hardware, and suggested that a global Mii system could scale to hundreds of millions of users without major storage issues.
Miyamoto's comments underscore his evolving role at Nintendo: less a day-to-day director of marquee game franchises like those on Nintendo Switch, and more a cross-media creative force involved in films, park attractions and collaborative mobile titles such as Pikmin Bloom.
The interview, published this week, comes as Miyamoto continues to shift focus from hands-on game direction to film projects and Universal Studios' Super Nintendo World theme-park efforts.
Miyamoto has held prominent creative roles at Nintendo for decades and has recently worked with external partners on titles such as Pikmin Bloom, developed by Niantic and released for iOS and Android in November 2021.
On the prospect of directing games again, Miyamoto said he is not actively thinking about taking the helm of a major project.
He explained that he became involved with Pikmin Bloom because he wanted to try making something himself, and that if a theme interests him and allows for creative experimentation, he might consider directing again.
He also noted the practical realities of modern development, observing that modern game projects often require very large teams and that films are similarly large productions with producers and crew managing day-to-day logistics.
Asked whether there is a particular project he wants to pursue, Miyamoto told Famitsu he has no specific plan to see out on his own.
He said he would welcome initiatives that attract broad participation — even joking that his family thinks he should slow down — but emphasized he does not feel compelled to shepherd a single long-term project to completion.
Reflecting on the future, Miyamoto expressed a simple wish for continuity: he hopes the teams he works with can continue without major problems.
He framed it in pragmatic terms, reminding colleagues to prepare for the unexpected and to keep projects running smoothly.
One of the more detailed portions of the interview covered Miis — Nintendo's compact avatar format first popularized on the Wii.
Miyamoto praised the creativity of Western Mii creators, and floated the idea of linking Miis to Nintendo Accounts so users could collect and share them more widely.
He highlighted Miis' low memory footprint, saying the avatars are composed of only a few hundred bytes due to design choices made to fit many characters into limited hardware, and suggested that a global Mii system could scale to hundreds of millions of users without major storage issues.
Miyamoto's comments underscore his evolving role at Nintendo: less a day-to-day director of marquee game franchises like those on Nintendo Switch, and more a cross-media creative force involved in films, park attractions and collaborative mobile titles such as Pikmin Bloom.
