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How involved has Miyamoto been since the N64 days?

HououinKyouma

HououinKyouma

The Wise Ones
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Oct 27, 2017
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I was just taking a look at Shigeru Miyamoto's extensive gameography, and noticed that his director roles seem to go away after the N64 generation.

I'm ignorant when it comes to game development, but is there any information on how extensively Miyamoto has been involved in Nintendo projects since then?

I'm sure it varies from series-to-series, but it'd be interesting to know which titles Miyamoto has played a huge role in. I'm assuming he's taken on more a consultant role at this point, as opposed to a more hands-on director/designer?

Would be awesome to hear how involved he was in Nintendo's most recent "masterpieces."
 

Deleted member 10629

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
12,238
IIRC his last 'big' project was Wii Music.

Other than that he is more of a producer, 'elder guide' at Nintendo. The teams probably ask for his input but he isnt that hands-on anymore.
 
Dooble

Dooble

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Oct 28, 2017
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A producer is still really significant to a project, especially if he has a creative background.

Also "Original Concept&Design" of Mario Galaxy...Shigeru Miyamoto.
 
Lady Bow

Lady Bow

Member
Nov 30, 2017
11,268
He's mainly been the producer role with lot's of creative input/ideas. I'm so glad he gave us the visors concept for the Prime series.

"Mike Wikan likes to tell a story about Mr. Miyamoto asking us during the early design phases of Prime 1, 'What would it be like if Samus had a bug's head?'" – Brian Walker, Senior Producer

"And at the time, I remember going back to our office and saying, 'Switching heads? What does that have to do with Metroid?'" – Mike Wikan, Senior Designer

"He wasn't asking if she had the head of a fly…" – Walker

"…He was talking about the mechanic of altered perception as a whole." – Wikan

"And from that, the visor system came to be, where Samus could see different things with different visors and use that as a puzzle-solving element." – Walker
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https://nintendoeverything.com/miya...the-visor-system-in-the-metroid-prime-series/
 

Deleted member 5535

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Oct 25, 2017
13,656
ShooterMcGavin said:
I was just taking a look at Shigeru Miyamoto's extensive gameography, and noticed that his director roles seem to go away after the N64 generation.

I'm ignorant when it comes to game development, but is there any information on how extensively Miyamoto has been involved in Nintendo projects since then?

I'm sure it varies from series-to-series, but it'd be interesting to know which titles Miyamoto has played a huge role in. I'm assuming he's taken on more a consultant role at this point, as opposed to a more hands-on director/designer?

Would be awesome to hear how involved he was in Nintendo's most recent "masterpieces."
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

The last time he directed a game was in the 90s. In the 2000s he was more involved as producer, general producer and executive producer since he was the head of ead. He was pretty much involved in a major or minor way in the majority of nintendo games be it metroid prime, wind waker, galaxy, sunshine and other ones as a producer or general manager at pikmin, plimin 3 and others where he created the concept of the franchise, for example.
 
Squid Bunny

Squid Bunny

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Jun 11, 2018
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I remember a story on how he helped Retro Studios A LOT in the development of the original Metroid Prime.
 
zerocalories

zerocalories

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Oct 28, 2017
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I like to imagine he walks around different offices in a Hawaiian shirt and flip flops, giving one liners on how to make projects better

While smoking a cigarette
 
PucePikmin

PucePikmin

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Apr 26, 2018
3,737
He was fairly involved in Mario Galaxy, Wii Music, Pikmin 3, Star Fox Zero, and others. Last thing he was head designer/director for was Pac-Man Vs. So he still gets hands on, or at least he did until he got involved with the theme park/movie stuff.

There is stuff where he's pretty much been purely an advisor for a while now -- he handed Zelda off to Aonuma a long time ago, for instance.
 

ArtVandelay

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May 29, 2018
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He's the Stan Lee of video games. Occasionally pops up to collect a paycheck.
 
Pyro

Pyro

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Yeah he's been a producer/consultant for a long time but he can still pop in, play a game, and make demands that the team has to follow cuz he's freakin' Miyamoto.

And the role of Producer varies by company/studio. At EA for example Producers have more creative control over a project than others (Steve Gaynor talked about it with somebody on the Tone Control podcast).
 
MaitreWakou

MaitreWakou

One Winged Slayer
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May 15, 2018
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Not the point of the thread, but I think it's still incredible that he did direct games in the N64 days, more than 10 years after his first classics. It tells you how much of a fuckin genius he is, and how passionate he is. Most directors at Nintendo direct a few hits, then become producers, and they just don't have the time anymore to direct any games.
Miyamoto in the meanwhile, legendary game designer of the 2D platformer genre and 2D adventure genre, during the transition to 3D was like "hold my beer, it's not over, I'm going to end the game right now"
And then during the Gamecube and early Wii era he came up with some great ideas of design (Metroid Prime, Pikmin, Super Mario Galaxy...).

Now he's a precious supervisor and general producer, dude have seen so much things in this god damn industry, he's been involved in so much games in so many genres (RPG, FPS, platformers, adventure, action, arcade games, racers), working closely with japanese devs but even with western devs (Rare, Retro...). Dude is a legend.
 
Velocity:Design:Comfort

Velocity:Design:Comfort

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Nov 23, 2017
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NarohDethan said:
IIRC his last 'big' project was Wii Music.

Other than that he is more of a producer, 'elder guide' at Nintendo. The teams probably ask for his input but he isnt that hands-on anymore.
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Pikmin 3 was well after that.


I think there is a lack of understanding about producer and director at many Japanese developers (or really western ones too, it varies between companies) Often the producer has as much as or more influence and input than the director. Aonuma is not the director on botw for example.

About Miyamoto himself, it's classic gamer blind hate these days when his name is mentioned because of sticker star (which I hated as much as the next guy but it has a decent mc score and sold well) and star fox zero which was probably a blunder at all levels, not just at the top. As if any of that erases dozens upon dozens of amazing games as recently as 2013.
 
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MaitreWakou

MaitreWakou

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zerocalories said:
I like to imagine he walks around different offices in a Hawaiian shirt and flip flops, giving one liners on how to make projects better

While smoking a cigarette
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Billy Awesomo said:
But, but, but the man quit smoking! lol (I too imagine him in a Hawaiian shirt and flip flops giving one liners on how to make projects better lol)
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Kitano in Kikujiro style !
ete_de_kikujiro15.jpg
 
Oscillator

Oscillator

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Oct 30, 2017
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He's really proud of Pikmin. He's likely heavily involved in Pikmin 4.

OTOH, the only part of BotW he said he was in charge of was the mix of environmental sounds.

Another Nintendo old-timer, Koji Kondo, hasn't done heavy composition since the GameCube days. He only contributed one track to Skyward Sword, and wasn't even in the credits of BotW. His most recent work was Super Mario Maker, which was mostly remixes of his old stuff. Note that he's the head of the entire sound department, so has a lot on his plate.

EDIT: Kondo is credited with some Super Mario Odyssey composition.
 
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Brazil

Brazil

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Oct 24, 2017
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Just enough to ruin Paper Mario forever.

In all seriousness, they've been talking a lot about teaching the "newer generation" and passing the baton to those younger designers for a while now. Miyamoto is probably overseeing everything, but only really going hands-on with one project at a time nowadays.
 
B. Spaceman

B. Spaceman

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Oscillator said:
Another Nintendo old-timer, Koji Kondo, hasn't done heavy composition since the GameCube days. He only contributed one track to Skyward Sword, and wasn't even in the credits of BotW. His most recent work was Super Mario Maker, which was mostly remixes of his old stuff. Note that he's the head of the entire sound department, so has a lot on his plate.
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He did compose a surprising amount of Super Mario Odyssey songs though
 
Why would you do that?

Why would you do that?

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Oscillator said:
Kondo is credited with some Super Mario Odyssey composition.
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Kondo actually made a lot of Odyssey music.

The soundtrack CD lists composer credits for every piece of music in the game. What's funny is that when I checked the credits to all my favorite tracks, it turns out Kondo made almost all of them lol.

Kondo made the awesome Wooded Kingdom and Wooded Kingdom boss music, which was my favorite boss music. He also made the Bowser Kingdom (best Kingdom music) and boss music as well. He did other music as well like Lost Kingdom, Crazy Cap store, etc...
 
Boiled Goose

Boiled Goose

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Nov 2, 2017
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Too much.

Shiggy forgot what good game design is.

From amazing design in LoZ and SMB to Star Fox Zero.

Read up on his control philosophy during Nintendo arcade games. He made a whole 180.
 

shadowzinthedark

Member
Oct 31, 2017
301
I think he is more of a mentor now. I remember reading articles when BOTW was being designed/created and the team showed off a build to him all he did was climb up trees and chop them down
 
Tuco Benedicto Pacifico

Tuco Benedicto Pacifico

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Oct 31, 2017
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To be perfectly honest after reading years of interviews and anecdotes about Nintendo games the impression I got is that he barely contributes anymore, often with some occasional vague "old dev wisdom", and then the young and talented actually doing most of the heavy lifting love to give him way more credit for it just out of respect.
 
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