Nintendo is looking for people without gaming experience

Shigeru Miyamoto tries to take a step back and leave the leadership of new game projects to new talents. He consciously looks for people without gaming experience. Gamers think too traditional for his taste.

“I’m always looking for developers who aren’t super passionate game fans,” Shigeru Miyamoto said in an interview with The New York Times. “I think it’s important that new candidates are not so much gamers, but also have very different interests and skills.” That attitude is important, according to Miyamoto, because Nintendo is still trying to innovate. Developers who are fanatic gamers themselves, according to the creator of game characters such as Mario and Zelda, stick too much to existing ideas. That’s what Kosuke Yabuki states in the interview. Miyamoto’s 37-year-old trainee thinks Nintendo hasn’t changed. “We’re still trying to find unique ways to get people to play. Now it’s just time for a younger generation.”

It is perhaps not surprising that Miyamoto is looking for people without gaming experience. Miyamoto, who says he is increasingly trying to transfer full leadership of new projects to younger developers, has himself stated on several occasions that he draws his inspiration from everyday events. For example, the idea for the first Zelda game arose from memories of his childhood, exploring the Kyoto area as a child. He got the idea for Pikmin while walking through his own garden.

However, The New York Times also sees a risk in Nintendo and Miyamoto’s approach. The Switch is successful thanks to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey, and compared to predecessor Wii U, more games from other publishers are also appearing for the new console. Still, the offer for the coming year is meager, the newspaper says, because Nintendo has not yet announced games in the well-known franchises.