Is Nintendo’s fabled creator of Mario and Zelda stepping down as head game designer for the company? Or is it all a simple misunderstanding? Let’s find out — speculation go!
To retire, or not to retire? That was the question the gaming world went plum loco over as a recent Wired Game|Life interview with famous Nintendo figurehead, Shigeru Miyamoto, dropped that he was stepping down as head of Nintendo’s game design department in favor on working on smaller games. Or so as it seemed.
“Inside our office, I’ve been recently declaring, ‘I’m going to retire, I’m going to retire,’” Miyamoto told the Game|Life’s Chris Kohler through an interpreter. “I’m not saying that I’m going to retire from game development altogether. What I mean by retiring is, retiring from my current position.”
Like a balloon popping at a kid’s birthday party, immediate word of Miyamoto’s “supposed” retirement as big honcho to Nintendo’s EAD division, from the above passage, caused Nintendo shares to deflate two percentage points overnight. Thus alerting the public relation’s arm of Nintendo to send out a complete denial message to Reuters, post haste.
“This is absolutely not true, there seems to have been a misunderstanding.” A Nintendo spokesman said to the British publication. “He (Miyamoto) has said all along that he wants to train the younger generation.” And to drive the point further home, all tucked in nice & cozy, they added, “He has no intention of stepping down. Please do not be concerned.”
I’m almost sure that last bit in Nintendo’s fevered response was aimed at all-too important stockholders. Who, in their monocle teetering “What, what!” spasm, didn’t read (likely along with the whole internet it seems) the whole part to Miyamoto’s quote which further explained the reasoning behind his earlier statement.
“The reason why I’m stressing that is that unless I say that I’m retiring, I cannot nurture the young developers, after all, if I’m there in my position as it is, then there’s always kind of a relationship. And the young guys are always kind of in a situation where they have to listen to my ideas. But I need some people who are growing up much more than today.”
Basically, and as Chris Kohler even himself writes, the explanation to Miyamoto’s constant “I’m gonna retire” mantra, is to resonate with his younger developers that he won’t be around forever, and soon they’ll be the ones to drive Nintendo forward with their own ideas.
So no — Miyamoto isn’t stepping down from his current position at Nintendo. He’ll have to one day obviously, but for now he’s trying to impart an important, and all to forgotten, lesson to his pupils. Now please back away slowly from the ledge Nintendo fanboys and go on your merry way. Okay? Cool.
Calm yourselves down by either seeing this wacky Japanese climbing robot or this super back-to-basics Live Evergreen Dock for iPhones.
