Moving on from old favourites

In December last year rumours swirled around the internet that Shigeru Miyamoto was planning to retire from his role, reports of which were swiftly denied. Although it transpired as a misinterpreted comment in an interview, it still led to a number of questions about the future of Nintendo and its major franchises.

According to comments in the latest investor's briefing, Mr Miyamoto is in the process of delegating major franchises to other staff members to encourage their development, and also to allow his focus to fall on discovering the next big hit for the company.

Now, I am spending more time than before on finding new ideas for new developments rather than focusing my energy on work in my (development) teams in order to solidify the contents of (existing) franchise titles. After all, developing big hit titles must be the solution. I am acting with the understanding that one big hit title can change multiple phases of a situation in the entertainment business, and I feel that finding such one big hit is my basic job.

Accordingly, for that specific purpose, we are trying to create a new structure. As a result, I feel confident that we are gradually making improvements, and we have already come to the stage where quality software titles with a high completion level have been developed without my active involvement.

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata followed up on these comments to confirm that a new generation of developers were performing well.

Also on Mr. Miyamoto’s answer, there are two big development divisions at Nintendo, and I am supervising one, and Mr. Miyamoto is doing so in the other. We are encouraging active communication between the two. We are actively doing so and observing what happens if we assign particular work to people who have never done such work before. So far, we have observed more solid results than originally anticipated.

These comments reiterate statements last year that Shigeru Miyamoto is working on a new range of projects. It sounds like younger developers are finding their feet, meaning that our favourite franchises should be in good hands in the future. In terms of Miyamoto's search for the next big hit, what do you think this could be?

[source nintendo.co.jp]