Three Reasons Miyamoto Should Be Nintendo’s Next President

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The last couple weeks have been shocking and sad for gamers everywhere as we all mourned the untimely passing of Nintendo’s fourth President, Satoru Iwata. Ever since, there has been speculation as to who will take the reigns as his successor, and for many people the obvious answer is the legendary game designer/producer/director Shigeru Miyamoto. Responsible for the creation of most of Nintendo’s largest franchises – including Donkey Kong, The Legend of Zelda, Star Fox, Pikmin, Metroid, and of course Super Mario – Miyamoto was one of the driving minds of the early console boom and continues to contribute to Nintendo’s biggest successes. But does that really qualify him to be President of the company? Here’s three reasons why Miyamoto should be Nintendo’s next president.


1. There Is No Nintendo Without Miyamoto

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If Satoru Iwata was the heart of Nintendo, then Miyamoto is certainly the soul. Heralded as the father of modern video games, there’s hardly a game in existence today that wasn’t influenced by the legendary designer to at least some degree. The original Super Mario Bros. for the original Nintendo console essentially resuscitated a market that was on its last breath – console video gaming. It has gone on to become the second-most successful selling game of all time, and the Mario franchise itself is the most successful franchise in history, selling over 400 million units. If Super Mario had never come around, who knows what would have happened to not only Nintendo but the entire gaming industry as a whole.


2. Iwata Proved Developers Can Make Excellent Presidents

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One of the biggest concerns a lot of people have with Miyamoto becoming President is the fact that he is far more creative than he is business-minded. One of Iwata’s most famous quotes came from the Game Developer’s Conference in 2005, when he stated “On my business card, I am a corporate president. In my mind, I am a game developer. But in my heart, I am a gamer”. Miyamoto has a similar line of thinking. He does not use focus groups to test games, but simply plays them himself. If he figures a game is fun for himself  then others will enjoy it too. In an interview back in 1999, Miyamoto said of game development:

And that’s the point – Not to make something sell, something very popular, but to love something, and make something that we creators can love. It’s the very core feeling we should have in making games.

In his nearly 40 years with Nintendo, that philosophy hasn’t changed. Miyamoto doesn’t care about hyper-realistic graphics as much as game mechanics and just having fun, and that’s what a President should have. Above all else, if you make an enjoyable product, people will love it. Iwata was a brilliant programmer before he became President and he brought the company to the peak of its success with the Wii because he knew people would have fun with it. Miyamoto has proven time and time again that he makes games fun, and a company running under that philosophy could prove incredibly successful.


3. Miyamoto Can Ensure Nintendo Nintendo Keeps Being Nintendo

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It’s no secret that Nintendo’s Board of Directors had been pressuring Iwata to move to mobile for a quick buck, and steer away from the core value that Nintendo has had for so many years. Meanwhile, Miyamoto has been moving further and further away from development in recent years, and instead moving into a sort of “father figure” role while helping to mold some of the younger developers at Nintendo. He knows that the best way for the company to thrive in the current landscape of video games is to get back to the roots of gaming and focus on interesting mechanics and gameplay, not flashy graphics. If he’s the head of the company he can personally ensure that game development is moving in the direction Nintendo has always strived for, and that’s becoming more and more rare in today’s video game landscape.


What do you think? Should Miyamoto replace Iwata as Nintendo’s President, or should he stick to development and let somebody else step in? Whoever eventually takes on the role will have enormous shoes to fill as Iwata’s successor, a man who can never truly be replaced.

 

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About Author

Devon Aelick has been playing video games virtually his entire life, with his first NES gifted to him – along with the original Legend of Zelda – for his fourth birthday. He graduated from the Computer Science program at Laurentian University. Devon has been blogging about games for roughly five years now (in the little amount of free time he gets between actually playing them).

  • Josh Morland

    Wow…Very insightful! /S

  • Jason Mounce

    Gotta separate the Business men from the designers and the engineers. Not clump them in one basket.

  • Joseph Oliveira

    Mr. Miyamoto doesn’t want the job. He’s already said that multiple times. He’s helping the younger generation create better games before he retires. The guy is 62, I’m sure he doesn’t want to die while making games all his life.