Shigeru Miyamoto, the 73-year-old creative mind at Nintendo, has once again made his stance clear in an interview with Superplay Magazine. His goal was never to convey deep messages or change society, but to design the perfect video game and entertain. This vision contrasts with that of other developers like Hideo Kojima, famous for his anti-war plots in Metal Gear Solid. For Miyamoto, fun is the ultimate goal.
The technical pursuit of pure gameplay 🎮
In development, Miyamoto prioritizes interaction and mechanics over narrative. His method involves prototyping control and movement ideas, testing how the player responds before building a story around them. This explains the solidity of titles like Super Mario or Zelda, where jump physics or puzzle-solving are the core. For him, a game must work intuitively, without the need for extensive cutscenes to explain its purpose. Technology serves the immediate experience.
Kojima writes novels; Miyamoto, instruction manuals 🧩
While Kojima spends hours explaining nuclear conspiracies and genes, Miyamoto wonders how to make a plumber jump on a turtle without it seeming like a quantum physics task. The irony is that both are revered, but one makes you reflect on war and the other on why a mushroom makes you grow. In the end, the Nintendo creator seems to be right: perhaps the world doesn't need more messages, but more uncomplicated fun.