Last week, IGN published an interview with Shigeru Miyamoto advertising the Super Nintendo World theme park in Orlando, FL. It’s a lengthy interview mostly focused on the park itself, but one statement Miyamoto made while discussing Pikmin has been rolling around in my head for a few days:
“I really see Nintendo as sort of like a talent agency and we have within our roster a lot of talented characters. So we create a game with a certain gameplay concept, gameplay experience, and then we look at the roster and see who would best fit this gameplay concept or experience.”
The interview uses this line as part of its own title, but after receiving this answer the interviewer moves on to questioning how Miyamoto keeps his “incredible sense of humor and wonder and whimsy” even though “a lot of people when they get old they kind of lose that.” This bothers me, not just because, as Miyamoto responds, “that would be offensive to maybe people of my age,” but also because this is one of the most substantial statements he made in the entire interview. It deserves to be explored.
This is not the first time Nintendo has explained itself this way, nor is it a passing fad in the studio. This is how Nintendo has always worked as a company. In a 2000 interview published in Game Maestro VOL.1, translated and preserved online by shmuplations, Miyamoto describes the creation of Donkey Kong, his very first game as a designer at Nintendo:
“Nintendo was considering obtaining the license for Popeye and making a game with those characters. It would have featured Popeye dodging Bluto’s barrels while trying to reach Olive and rescue her. Popeye would start off weak, but if he ate spinach he would temporarily get strong. I drew some mock-up images depicting what I thought the game would look like, and I figured that even if we ended up not being able to get the license, we could just swap out the characters. That was how the basic structure of Donkey Kong was created.”
This design-then-character structure is a core tenet of Nintendo’s game design philosophy. The game needs to be fun first, and then the characters can come later. In a 1993 interview with Miyamoto featured in the Super Mario All-Star Guide Book by Ape Inc. and translated by Source Gaming and Brando, when asked “Where is Mario going next?”, he responds:
“That depends on whether the next game is fun or not (Laughs). We’re working on a new title for the Super Nintendo which should come out next year, but as for the needed development time… I guess the staff will all just have to do our best (Laughs).”
That game would be released as Super Mario World, but the response of “it depends on whether the next game is fun or not” isn’t a joke. Neither is the crunch which likely occurred, implied strongly between the laughs. However, it’s undeniable that this process does result in titles with gameplay that still feels fresh 30 years later. This mentality is applied to nearly every game Nintendo creates. In the September 1995 issue of Dengeki Super Famicom (translated and preserved again by shmuplations) Producer Takashi Tezuka says:
“I’ve been asked before why we made a game with Yoshi as the main character. The main reason is that [we] wanted to make a Mario-style action game that even young children would be able to play. For that, the friendly character of Yoshi seemed perfect to us.”
There are drawbacks. This design-then-character structure demands compromises from the characters themselves, even though they may not seem like compromises when the final product is revealed. Some characters just don’t belong in certain situations, and what works for Donkey Kong won’t necessarily work for Star Fox. You can almost hear the conversations, which might have gone something like:
“Miyamoto wants us to make a game where players can turn into an animal, and explore an alternate world.”
“Yes, we’ve been prototyping that. We think we can do the transformations with a button press, and you can explore both the real world and the alternate one.”
“Great. We just need to decide on whose game this is.”
“Hmmm… it’s about time for a new Star Fox.”
“No, Star Fox is already an animal. That wouldn’t make the transformation work right.”
“Mario?”
“No one wants to see Mario become a werewolf!”
From the back of the room, a quiet voice asks, “Is it time to break the Waluigi case?”
“Never.”
“Link?”
“Actually, yeah, Link works.”
And that’s how Twilight Princess was born. It’s all about building out one core idea and making sure that everything around it supports it in some way. You can look at nearly every first-party Nintendo game and see that core idea easily; the F.L.U.D.D. in Super Mario Sunshine, the handling of the karts in Mario Kart, gluing items together in Tears of the Kingdom. In a 1999 interview with former Nintendo President Satoru Iwata (which originally appeared in Used Games magazine and has also been preserved and translated by shmuplations) he states:
“I think games journalism and media today has become fairly pessimistic. When I read reviews, I expect them to talk about what a game did well, but rather than focus on the merits, they seem more interested in finding flaws. But the lack of obvious flaws isn’t what makes a game compelling; even a flawless game can be boring. That’s why I feel it’s better for a game to have a single great idea than to focus on that kind of perfection.”
If Nintendo is a talent agency then the games themselves are the scripts, and the company’s wide array of original characters are the available actors. One can also imagine each original character or IP as having a certain status level both inside and outside the company. Mario and Link are A-list celebrities for Nintendo’s talent agency, while someone like Mr. Game and Watch or Captain Falcon are closer to C- or D-list actors.
This idea intrigued me, so here’s this. Please excuse the fact that all of the Fire Emblem characters on on the D-list, I honestly just never played them because they did not spark joy:
Of course, this is all just my own opinion and speculation, and even informed speculation can be incorrect. For example, look back at the conversation I scripted between Nintendo employees discussing Twilight Princess. Given what we know about Nintendo, it’s entirely possible that conversation happened in such a way. However, it’s not true. Here’s what actually happened at the start of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess’ development, as told by game director Eiji Aonuma in an interview with Satoru Iwata for Nintendo’s Iwata Asks:
“The initial theme I had in mind was naturally to make the first realistic Zelda since Ocarina of Time. But I didn’t dive in with only that aim in mind. I wanted to shake up the Zelda concept a little. That’s why early on, I brought up the suggestion that this time Link should transform into a wolf. I really felt that we needed a new twist of some sort. As for why I chose a wolf, it really was simply what occurred to me at the time. My intention was for it to just be one suggestion to get the ball rolling when we were discussing what kind of things we might do. I was curious as to how seriously everyone would take it. That’s what I was thinking when I threw the idea out there: “This time, let’s make him into a wolf!” Miyamoto-san really gave me a piece of his mind after that! (laughs) I remember him telling me: “It’s a lot harder to make a four-legged animal than it is to make a two-legged human, you know!” (laughs)”
This was a difficult time for the Legend of Zelda series, as sales of Wind Waker hadn’t met Nintendo’s expectations. The development of Twilight Princess was a long, complicated affair which saw delays and an eventual cross-platform release. In the same interview, Aonuma describes the process of leadership and guidance on the Zelda team:
“All that we can say to the staff during development are things along the lines of: “Well, we’ve racked our brains and come up with all the Zelda games this far, so keep that in mind, and keep racking your brains!” (laughs) In that sense, it is possible to give the staff the freedom to get on with developing the game. Needless to say, that doesn’t mean I simply left everything to them. Our role is to let the young staff on each of the Zelda projects come up with their own ideas, without being overly influenced by previous Zelda titles, then take those ideas and make them work successfully within the context of the game. But at the end, the more experienced developers have to tighten the screws, so to speak, so all the elements in the game fit together. Without experience, it’s extremely difficult to gauge things like how far to let the staff work freely on their own ideas, or how to put the game together in a way that will appeal to the user. It’s quite easy to keep coming up with ideas, and expanding the size of the game. It’s another thing to decide how best to connect those ideas. As Miyamoto-san often says, that is the part you really need to develop “a feel” for.””
Nintendo is not just a talent agency. Talent agents are there to help the talent make a deal with the studio or organizer, they don’t usually own the company that’s looking for talent. Nintendo does. Nintendo is a media empire.
In scanning through all of these old interviews with Nintendo employees, one thing that stands out is people’s fascination with comparing Miyamoto to Walt Disney. It comes up time and time again. In that same 2000 interview with Game Maestro VOL.1, after first speaking about how he appreciates how Disney makes stories that are entertaining for both parents and adults, he states:
“One other affinity I feel with Disney is for the person of Walt Disney. You know, Walt Disney only drew those early, primitive drawings of Mickey… yet he became the face of Disney. I may have created Mario, but I don’t make everything in those games―and yet I’m the face of Nintendo. In that sense I’m very interested to see where Nintendo goes from here. It’s incredible to me how Disney has maintained and supported Mickey’s character across the many decades.”
That was twenty-five years ago, and it’s probably safe to say that Miyamoto’s close relationship with Universal has now made him even more analogous to the train aficionado. In a different interview with IGN in 2019 to promote the Super Mario Bros. movie, Miyamoto said, “When this talk of comparing me to Walt Disney came out 20 years ago, I felt like, ‘no, please, I don’t deserve being compared. […] I really feel like the important thing is that Mario lives on as a legacy, as a character, and so, I feel like I don’t even need to be a part of that equation.”
Nintendo is not a talent agency because talent agencies place their talent in other people’s films. Nintendo is extremely guarded with its catalog of characters, only rarely allowing them to intermingle with other video game properties. Yes, there’s the occasional Link in Soul Caliber and Mario vs. Rabbids, but those are exceptions to the standard operating procedure. Almost across the board, Nintendo guards its IP with the same fervor that, well, Disney does. Indeed, both companies seemingly have no issue with throwing an IP in a vault and ignoring it for decades if they wish. Both also have a history of YouTube copyright strikes, for an unrelated-but-kinda-related example.
Nintendo is not a talent agency, it is a company that achieved its goal. In the same 1993 interview with Miyamoto I mentioned earlier, he states:
“People have told me things like “Mario has caught up with Mickey Mouse”, or “Mario is the Mickey Mouse of the digital era” (Laughs), but that might be an irresponsible way of putting it. Mickey Mouse has been around for 50 years, and Mario only 10. Mario will never close that 40-year gap. But what I do think about is whether Mario will still be around 50 years from now… That’s the challenge, for me. And even if Mario the character disappears from the screen, will there still be something “Mario-like” that exists? […] It’s like how you can draw 3 circles in a way that people will “see” Mickey Mouse, that level is really amazing.”
It hasn’t been quite 50 years yet, but it has been 32 years and Mario’s influence has only grown. In the same way Walt Disney built an empire around a mouse and excellent animation, Nintendo has built its empire around Mario and excellent design. If I drew a star with two oval-shaped eyes, would you see a power star? When you see a green pipe in real life, do you ever think about where it could go? I would, and I do.
The first movie I saw with my son in theaters was The Super Mario Bros. Movie. There’s now multiple massive theme parks open to the public in various locations around the world celebrating Nintendo characters. A The Legend of Zelda movie is in the works. There will certainly be a second Super Mario Bros. Movie in the future. Princess Peach was the 13th most popular Halloween costume of 2023 according to Billboard, which I have not been able to really confirm, but whatever, it’s not that important. The point is, Nintendo has made it. It has guaranteed its place in the public consciousness.
Nintendo is not a talent agency. Nintendo is Disney, and Miyamoto is not Walt Disney, but Miyamoto is kind of Walt Disney, sort of. In the right light. There are few other people that can claim the same amount of influence on this industry that he can, and if nothing else I do think that his passion has been in the right place since the beginning. I’d like to leave off this week’s column with Miyamoto’s own words, this time from a separate 1993 interview about the development of Star Fox, because I think it’s still quite important to take to heart today:
“Now that video games have come of age, we shouldn’t try and imitate movies or novels. We should create something that can only be done with the medium of video games. It isn’t about graphics or about stories, but about the exploration of virtual spaces.”
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