
Former Nintendo artist Takaya Imamura has kicked off the new year with a new blog post titled "Why I Left Nintendo" more than four years after departing from the company's Japanese headquarters.
While he goes into all sorts of history about his career, he's also shared his thoughts about Nintendo's future and how "crucial" talented and charismatic developers are to the success of the company and the value of its IP.
He believes it would be a "big mistake" for Nintendo to think it can get by as long as it has popular IPs, issuing the following reminder:
Takaya Imamura: "Nintendo is still in good hands, thanks to the many charismatic developers who have created major hits. But the idea that “as long as we have popular IPs, we’ll be fine!” is a big mistake. It’s crucial not to forget the talented individuals who uphold the value of those IPs."
Nintendo has had many skilled developers throughout the years who have reinvented the company's classic IPs with releases like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, while also crafting new and original IPs such as the Splatoon series. It's also set trends with its hardware innovation over the years.
Nintendo's most famous face (apart from its mascot Mario) is Shigeru Miyamoto, who is known not only as a god within the games industry, but is praised for his lifetime of work on series like Super Mario, Donkey Kong, and The Legend of Zelda.