Topic: Shigeru Miyamoto Speaks: An Interview Between Itoi and Miyamoto from 1999

[the_dan_x]

Miyamoto interviewed about his then current thoughts and on five years from then.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/translation/36342

Over New Year's break we found this interesting interview with Miyamoto from back in '99 titled, "Shigeru Miyamoto Speaks: About his current thoughts and five years from now." It contains a lot of great insight into what his thoughts and worries were at the time. The subsequent pages contain all six parts in a series of interviews, conducted by Shigesato Itoi and originally posted on his website, 1101.com. We'll post one page each day until the series is finished. We here at NWR hope you enjoy it as much as we did translating it.

[smallsharkbigbite]

I'd love to meet Miyamoto and spend a day with him.  The guy seems genuinely happy and sees things in everyday life that others don't.  The guy saved Nintendo with Donkey Kong and then created the Nintendo empire with Mario/Zelda.  The gameplay elements he added during the years are incredible and they are pervasive in almost all the popular games today. 


I really like his interviews.  He comes across as a classy guy, who family is important to him.  I love that his creativeness is grounded in fantasy and he chose to focus on items that he could play with his family during his career.  I'm hard on Nintendo for avoiding mature titles and not pushing great hardware, but Miyamoto was never going to to take them to that promised land.  Nintendo was blinded by his visions and chose to ignore the developing game markets.  That said, I'm glad he chose to focus on games that made him happy.  He was truly epic in his gaming approach and his games will forever be hailed among the best ever. 

[ClexYoshi]

there... are some kinda eerie and telling bits in this interview. You really get into Miyamoto's psyche when he talks about that baseball team, and... also just how different of a company Nintendo is. the quote about Yamauchi disliking anniversaries is especially telling when the past few years have been Nintendo creating constant faux celebrations with things like the Year of Luigi, the 30th anniversary of the Famicom, the Zelda, Mario, and Kirby anniversary celebrations, etc.

We also get a tale of a very strange superstition that had it maybe been say... 2 years later, would have quite possibly created a very frustrating return trip to japan or worse, one of the most tragic and ironic losses of a living legend ever, should there have been a flight delay.

[the_dan_x]

Yeah, this stuff is super interesting and really does show how much the company has changed over the years. The interview style is just super casual, too, which seems to be the kind of thing that Miyamoto likes (there's some more talk about that stuff in the upcoming parts). It's more of a monologue than an interview, really, but still awesome.


I'll be posting the second part in the next few hours! I hope you guys enjoy it! 

[azeke]

From what i understand these series of interviews are precursor to Iwata Asks.

[Caterkiller]

Finally read them all in one sit down. Really really interesting stuff there! Thanks for putting all this up.


I wish I had something to add to the discussion though.

[the_dan_x]

Glad to hear it, man!