Miyamoto: My Development Style Hasn't Changed Much

With focus shifting from games like Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda to titles like Wii Fit and Wii Music, some have felt that Shigeru Miyamoto’s priorities have changed as a game designer. Still, despite this, the legendary creator says that his development style hasn’t changed all that much.

“I don’t feel that my style of making videogames has changed so much,” said Miyamoto to Edge. “Over the years, I’ve tended to work on a project more deeply as the development phase gets closer to completion. The only difference is that when we’re working on something really new like Nintendogs or Wii Music, I tend to be very deeply involved a lot earlier. For the so-called ‘serious titles’ my involvement tends to be much greater towards the latter stage.”

While Miyamoto doesn’t appear too reflective about the arc of his game development career, he does say that his job did take a turn when it comes to giving input for the company’s hardware.

“It might surprise you, but if I can think of any really significant change in my role over time, I’d probably say it’s my involvement with hardware design,” detailed Miyamoto. “A long time ago, my role in designing the actual hardware was really limited – mostly it was down to designing the controller, or the controlling interface, or some of those special features that you want the hardware to include on the software side, to make design and development more efficient. It was all about simply making better software. But I think, probably from around the time of the DS, my involvement with hardware has significantly changed. With that project and onwards, I’ve been able to significantly oversee the overall development of the hardware as well as keeping an eye on the software side of things.”