Nintendo Director Shigeru Miyamoto is Hooked on Pokemon GO
Nintendo Director and Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto details his current obsession with Pokemon GO in the latest Nintendo shareholder meeting.
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On the dawn of its fifth anniversary celebration, the groundbreaking mobile game Pokemon GO continues to be played by millions of people everyday. One of these millions is Shigeru Miyamoto, the Representative Director of Nintendo, Pokemon GO being his latest gaming obsession.
Shigeru Miyamoto is one of the most recognizable and influential figures in the gaming industry. He pioneered the foundation of what video games are today with his legendary creations of Super Mario, The Legend of Zelda, and countless other Nintendo franchises. The Pokemon series, while being a Nintendo IP, is rarely ever developed in-house at Nintendo, the studio Game Freak being the primary developers. Pokemon GO’s alternate reality (AR) gameplay took the timeless Pokemon formula and brought it to the real world, allowing fans to “catch ’em all” by themselves, or tackle its legendary and mega raids with friends.
During the latest Nintendo shareholder meeting, Shigeru Miyamoto discussed what some of his favorite games are, with Pokemon GO being the standout title. For Miyamoto, Pokemon GO’s ease of access and multiplayer capabilities are the game’s draw, stating, “This game (…) is a dream come true of playing a game with my whole family.” He elaborates that he has been playing the game with his wife for the past two years, and jokes that the average age of Japanese players is somewhere around 60 years old. Considering Pokemon GO helped overseas military members to socialize as well, the game’s encouragement for social interaction is definitely one of its standout features.
Miyamoto’s statement also reveals a bit about his gaming personality, as to what games he typically plays. Rather bluntly, he says, “I basically tend to play the games I created myself, so I haven’t been influenced much by the games of other companies.” He contextualizes the statement though, noting his appreciation for the original Pac-Man’s design when he first started game development, and his love of Tetris. Looking at the list of games Miyamoto has directed, the influence of Pac-Man and Tetris are clear.
In some ways, it is a bit ironic that Miyamoto’s gaming profile is limited to just his own titles. Take for instance, the Super Smash Bros. series: although it originally was a fighting game that pit exclusively Nintendo characters, it has since become a franchise that celebrates gaming in general, with fighters from a variety of non-Nintendo titles. Granted, Smash Bros. is not his series to control at will as he has been a supervisor throughout the series, Miyamoto’s statement raises the question of his familiarity with games outside of Nintendo, like Metal Gear, Final Fantasy, and Tekken. With a career as legendary and influential as his, though, Miyamoto can definitely play whatever he likes, especially Pokemon GO.
Pokemon GO is out now for Android and iOS mobile devices.
Source: Nintendo Japan
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