Topic: Miyamoto reassigning self to smaller projects

[Shaymin]

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. — The creator of Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda will step down from his current position at Nintendo but remain with the company to work on smaller, more personal projects, Wired.com has learned.
In an exclusive interview with Wired.com on Wednesday, the 59-year-old head of Nintendo’s game design department said that he will move away from supervising the development of massive games like this year’s Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword and Super Mario 3D Land, passing the torch to the younger designers in the company and working on projects that won’t take as long to complete.
“Inside our office, I’ve been recently declaring, ‘I’m going to retire, I’m going to retire,’” Miyamoto said through his 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.”
“What I really want to do is be in the forefront of game development once again myself,” Miyamoto said. “Probably working on a smaller project with even younger developers. Or I might be interested in making something that I can make myself, by myself. Something really small.”

More here: http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2011/12/miyamoto-interview/

[broodwars]

I think this is a good thing, overall.  He wants to step down and work in development again rather than supervise.  I don't see the harm in him doing so.

[NWR_insanolord]

This isn't a good thing. This is a great thing. Miyamoto being directly involved in game development again should result in some really cool stuff.

[Chozo Ghost]

Hopefully this new role gives him the freedom to work on new creating new IPs. The last thing he made that was new was Pikmin, and that was 10 years ago. There will always be Mario and Zelda and his other inventions, but that's the torch he can pass on. His work should be on creating new and original things.

And before anyone says anything, I know he did Wii Music, but I'm trying to pretend that never happened....

[TJ Spyke]

He did the "Wii ..." series in general, so he is responsible for games like Wii Sports and Wii Sports Resort.

[Ceric]

I think Wii Sports* probably had a lot of hands in it.

Its good that Miyamoto can do what he wants but, without his direct influence it will be interesting what he has actually managed to past on.

[noname2200]

I'm more than fine with this. His game will presumably get more of his personal touch, and other Nintendo games will have less of it. A good thing all around, I think.

[ThePerm]

oh good, now we can get new franchises. I mean this by 2 ways. Miyamoto creates franchises when he's developing, and at the same time it seems as though New Franchises don't get to happen when he's on top. He only lets devs work on his franchises. So, this should allow Nintendo to do three things :make new franchises, make new franchises, and make new franchises.