Nintendo won’t change when Mario creator leaves

The legendary creator of Super Mario Bros, Donkey Kong, and The Legend of Zelda has said that Nintendo will stay the same once he eventually retires.

Shigeru Miyamoto, the creator of Super Mario Bros, Donkey Kong, and The Legend of Zelda, has said that Nintendo will be fine without him when he eventually retires.

Miyamoto joined Nintendo almost fifty years ago, back in 1977, and quickly became one of the most influential figures in the games industry. He co-created dozens of franchises that remain popular today, including Mario Bros, which is one of the biggest video game franchises of all time.

The legendary figure was interviewed by NPR, where he said that he doesn’t feel as if Nintendo will change all that much once he eventually retires or leaves the company. Miyamoto is 70 years old, and while he has not yet made any announcements about his retirement, he has been working primarily in an advisory role since 2015 (thanks, Eurogamer).

“You know, I really feel like [Nintendo] is not going to change,” Miyamoto said, “It’s probably going to be the same. There’s people on the executive team, creators within the company, and also people who create Mario, they all have this sense of what it means to be Nintendo”.

Miyamoto helped create The Legend of Zelda series. Picture: Nintendo

The game developer also said that developers at Nintendo have a good understanding of what Nintendo is and stands for, saying that the company is a good place for fostering new ideas that fit within the spirit of Nintendo’s legacy.

“It’s not like there’s a lot of different opinions that go back and forth,” he said, “Everyone has an understanding, this kind of shared understanding, of what it is to be Nintendo. And so even when there’s new ideas that come up, there’s always the fact that it’s a new idea, but also the fact that, is it a new idea that really has the essence of Nintendo or not?”

“We have this incredible shared vision, almost a little scary shared vision, about this. So I think there won’t – it’s not going to change,” he concluded.

The long-running Mario series is one of the most popular gaming franchises in history. Picture: Nintendo

In a previous interview last month, Miyamoto hinted that a new Super Mario game was in the works, saying at the time that the company was “always working on Mario” and promising that the company would share new information about the upcoming game when it was ready to show off.

Miyamoto also acted in an advisory role on the upcoming Super Mario Bros. Movie, which was recently delayed in Australia by a week.

Written by Oliver Brandt on behalf of GLHF.