Shigeru Miyamoto is Retiring from his current position.

[Correction]

‘I’m Retiring,’ Nintendo’s Miyamoto Tells His Staff

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.”

Miyamoto said that he’s hoping to start work on a project in 2012, and hopefully show the game off publicly within the year.

“In other words, I’m not intending to start from things that require a five-year development time,” he said.

Miyamoto, whose creations propelled Nintendo to worldwide prominence beginning with 1981′s arcade game Donkey Kong and who is generally recognized as the world’s most influential and creative game designer, said he felt comfortable stepping away from supervising the Mario and Zelda games because his staff has done such a good job with this year’s critically acclaimed entries in both series.

“I’m saying this because I have a solid reaction from the existing teams,” he said. “I was able to nurture the developers inside Nintendo who were able to create something like this or something like that,” he said, gesturing to banners in the interview room in Nintendo’s office that showed the logos of Skyward Sword and Mario 3D Land.

The reason Miyamoto keeps telling the younger developers that he’s going to retire is to send the message that he won’t always be around for them to work with.

“The reason why I’m stressing that is that unless I say that I’m retiring, I cannot nurture the young developers,” he said. “After all, if I’m there in my position as it is, then there’s always kind of a relationship. And the young guys are always kind of in a situation where they have to listen to my ideas. But I need some people who are growing up much more than today.”

As for himself, Miyamoto seemed eager to get to work on his new ideas with a smaller, younger staff.

“Anyway, I’m interested in doing a variety of many other things,” he said with his usual cryptic smile.

Wired.com’s full interview with Miyamoto, including his thoughts on Skyward Sword, making Mario Kart 7 with a Western development team, 3-D gaming, cell phones and more on the future of games, will be published next week.

[AoE]

Nintendo's current CEO needs to retire.

[Kurokikaze]

And so starts the retiring/passing away of people that made our childhoods so great... :/

[Ragnell]

Super sadface

[Metah]

Title is somewhat misleading lol. When I read "Miyamoto is Retiring" I thought he was just gonna be gone for good

[Vandole]

http://s3.amazonaws.com/kym-assets/p...png?1306264975

[Serra]

Yeah, someone needs to change the title to point out the fact that he's not fully retiring, just gonna be working on smaller projects. I'm pretty ok with this if these smaller projects produce gems like Pikmin.

[Kipling]

Yeah, someone needs to change the title to point out the fact that he's not fully retiring, just gonna be working on smaller projects. I'm pretty ok with this if these smaller projects produce gems like Pikmin.

This, a million times this. I can't wait for the new Pikmin.

[Correction]

I can't wait for the new Pikmin.

Pikmin 3 won't have Miyamoto's fingerprints on it.

[Kipling]

Aware, but it's been so long since 2 (and they have enough to go on I'd think), that in theory they could do a good job. In theory.

[hey]

http://nooooooooooooooo.com/

[Kaisha]

I actually like the move he's making. Smaller, faster to produce projects = easy way for him to test bench some new ideas without a large capital risk, and to possibly hand off to the 3-5 year production team to create newer and more full-fledged entries upon while he continues dabbling on other ideas.

He wouldn't need to play it safe with his ideas since they'd be fresh, rather than based upon long-standing franchises which have high expectations.

[miokomioko]

I are sads.

[Correction]

I actually like the move he's making. Smaller, faster to produce projects = easy way for him to test bench some new ideas without a large capital risk, and to possibly hand off to the 3-5 year production team to create newer and more full-fledged entries upon while he continues dabbling on other ideas.

He wouldn't need to play it safe with his ideas since they'd be fresh, rather than based upon long-standing franchises which have high expectations.

Let's hope that the Wii Ware/eShop doesn't bury his gold the way it buries everything else.

[Zetanio]

Goodbye childhood. Time to be an adult.

[Lucavi]

Yeah, I guess its time to man up already. Its been a great 28 years for me.

[Elcura]

Is this really that bad? I don't see it.

[Zetanio]

Is this really that bad? I don't see it.

Just feels like the beginning of the end of my (and many other BG'ers) era of video gaming and game design.

[blindSharingan]

Official Statement from Nintendo:

"Video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto's role at Nintendo is not changing. He will continue to be a driving force in Nintendo's development efforts. In discussing his priorities at Nintendo in a media interview, Mr. Miyamoto explained how he is encouraging the younger developers at the company to take more initiative and responsibility for developing software. He attempted to convey his priorities moving forward, inclusive of overseeing all video game development and ensuring the quality of all products. Mr. Miyamoto also discussed his desire to pursue fresh ideas and experiences of the kind that sparked his initial interest in video games."

From IGN

[Elrina]

Official statement reeks of fear.