He’s one of the most renowned videogame designers in history with an unprecedented string of hits to his credit but as Nintendo President Satoru Iwata pointed out, Shigeru Miyamoto isn’t God, you know.
Who could blame people for thinking that the man behind franchises like Donkey Kong, Mario, Zelda, Nintendogs and Wii Fit has a touch of the omnipotent about him? But in Nintendo’s most recent financial results briefing to investors, President Satoru Iwata took pains to point out that Miyamoto is, despite everything he’s accomplished, just a man.
Addressing criticism about release delays in 2008, Satoru said, “Honestly speaking, whether entertainment software is good enough or not cannot be told until development nears completion. Even amongst the software created by Shigeru Miyamoto of Nintendo, some have turned out to be entertaining enough in line with the original development concept while some turned out to be lacking something in the end.”
“One of the reasons why Miyamoto is highly praised is because of his ability to stop, rethink about, and fix how he can convey the appeal of a software when he finds out during the latter phase of development that the software will not be good enough. This is why the games he has worked on have a high batting average to produce big hits,” he said. “However, he is not God and even Miyamoto himself cannot hit the mark every time nor always predict how long it takes to complete development.”
He also noted that despite Miyamoto’s long and uniquely successful history, he’s not the only guy who makes things happen at Nintendo. While a large number of Nintendo products carry his name or credit him as a producer, Iwata said, “He is just another human being, so it is not possible that every single idea contained in these software was the sole creation of Shigeru Miyamoto.”
“Certainly, when it comes to identifying and verbalizing some of the important major findings, few people can easily succeed him. For example, few people other than Shigeru Miyamoto can declare that weighing yourself everyday must be fun for everyone,” he continued. “However, the fact that Nintendo software is always full of unique and fun ideas attests to the fact that there are many good game creators at Nintendo. Together with Shigeru Miyamoto, all of them have been making what are called Nintendo software.”
