Shigeru Miyamoto, the legendary creator of Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda, has revealed that he rarely plays video games by himself these days. In a recent interview with Famitsu, the 73-year-old designer said that the only time he plays is to help his grandchildren.
Miyamoto: 'I don't really play by myself that much anymore'
'Well, I don’t really play by myself that much anymore,' Miyamoto replied when asked if he plays the Nintendo Switch 2 regularly. 'In my case, my grandchildren… if they have the games at their own house they play too much, so I keep them at my house and tell them, ‘Come to Grandpa’s house when you want to play’ (laughs).'
He added: 'My youngest grandchild can’t clear the game yet, so they’re happy when I play with them and help them clear it. They say the boss in Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker is scary, so I play that part for them.'
Miyamoto's changing role and inspiration
Miyamoto's last credit as a director on a game was 2016's Super Mario Run, and he was supervising director on Star Fox Zero the same year. Prior to that, his last straight director credit was for Super Mario 64 in 1996. Despite his immense influence, he has often looked outside games for inspiration, such as observing ants in his garden for Pikmin. In 2007, he refuted that Super Mario Galaxy was inspired by Ratchet & Clank, admitting he had never seen the game.
Miyamoto has previously said he encourages developers to 'start with an idea that personally means something to them,' like an 'individual’s personal hobbies.'
Views on console specs and Nintendo's advantage
In the same interview, Miyamoto said he believes 'customers are no longer just looking for specs' when buying a console, pointing to the success of the original Switch. 'I think the ideal is that if you buy the software, you can play it on the device you have at home,' he explained. 'Smartphones are everywhere, aren’t they? I think that’s one ideal. But Nintendo has always been providing gameplay that only we can create, including the interface, and compared to smartphones, it has the advantage of being able to respond quickly and having a high degree of freedom because it only requires one architecture and support for one piece of hardware.'
Miyamoto also confirmed that development on the Star Fox remake and Yoshi And The Mysterious Book were kickstarted by each character's involvement in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie.
