Shigeru Miyamoto will be featured during Nintendo's E3 event

Nintendo is attending this year's E3 as usual, and will be broadcasting throughout the event, which officially starts tomorrow, June 10th, and wraps up on Thursday, June 12th. The Big N has now confirmed that gaming legend Shigeru Miyamoto will appear during this year's presentation.

Mr. Miyamoto will be on #Nintendo Treehouse: Live @ #E3 tomorrow afternoon to show some of his new projects. Stay tuned for updates!
— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) June 9, 2014

As you can see from the image above, Nintendo's coverage will start tomorrow at 9 a.m. Pacific Time, while Miyamoto is scheduled to appear in the afternoon. You can check out the Big N's official E3 website via the link below:

e3.nintendo.com

Miyamoto says give the Wii U time

Legendary game designer Shigeru Miyamoto recently spoke with CNN about the Wii U, and said that he believes people will understand the system after they have spent some time with it. He compared the console to the Nintendo DS which also had quite a few skeptics when it launched, due to the fact that they didn't know what to make of a system that had two screens to look at it. Miyamoto feels that over time, players will view the GamePad's touchscreen as essential.

“There was a period when we first released the Nintendo DS that people would say there’s no way people can look at two screens at once. I almost feel like, as people get more familiar with Wii U and these touchscreen interfaces, that there is going to come a point where they feel like ‘I can’t do everything I want to do if I don’t have a second screen’.”

Miyamoto went on to say that he feels the Wii U is more than just a game machine and is "ideal to have in the living room" due to its many practical features.

“I feel a device like Wii U, with its ability to continue to offer new features and that network connection and the connection to the TV and the interface, really makes it feel that it’s more than just a game machine, but something that offers a lot of practical use and practical purpose in the living room. I look at it as being a very useful device that can do many different things and therefore really seems to be the device that’s ideal to have in the living room.”

In addition, Miyamoto also said that Nintendo's "immediate objective" is to improve the stability of the Wii U and "make it a little more convenient to use from a system standpoint." A system update is due later this month which is meant to stabilize the OS and improve loading times.

Source: CNN via My Nintendo News, Polygon

Shigeru Miyamoto appearing on GameTrailers TV this Thursday

Shigeru Miyamoto will appear on tomorrow's episode of GameTrailers TV. He is reportedly joining the cast to help promote Nintendo's "Year of Luigi" celebration. The show will air Thursday night at 1:30 AM/12:30c  on SPIKE. Preview after the break.

Source: GameTrailers

Miyamoto wishes Pikmin 3 had been ready closer to launch, discusses creating new IP and using existing material

In a recent interview with GameSpot, Shigeru Miyamoto discussed why the Wii U is the best system for Pikmin 3, and had a few things to say about what Nintendo is hoping to achieve with the title. Miyamoto also spoke to Time about the game, and said it "would have been nice" if it had been finished earlier and released closer to launch.

Time: The launch window lineup for the Wii U was light on titles starring mainstream Nintendo characters, which was actually kind of refreshing given all the off-the-beaten-path alternatives like ZombiU, Nano Assault Neo, Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate, Toki Tori 2, LEGO City Undercover, Pikimin 3 and The Wonderful 101.

Miyamoto: If you look back at the launch of Wii, we were able to prepare a game like Wii Sports, which at the time was clearly a new game, and launch that alongside a Zelda game. With the Wii U, we took a similar approach by launching Nintendo Land as well as a Mario game — though we’re working on Zelda for Wii U, that’s going to take us a little big longer. From my perspective, I think ideally it would have been nice if we’d been able to release Pikmin 3 closer to launch, but the Wii U — though it shares the Wii name — is obviously a brand new system, with new chips and graphical capabilities. It can do a lot more, and in the process of developing a lot of the features and functionality, the resources required to best utilize those features drew on some of the same resources that might have been spent developing games, thus we weren’t able to bring quite as robust a lineup initially.

At the same time, we still have new things to learn about how to leverage the features and functionalities of Wii U in ways that create fun and interesting new ways to play, including new gameplay systems. As we become even more familiar with the hardware, we’ll be able to do more from a software standpoint. That’s an area we’re currently devoting resources to.

Time also asked Miyamoto if he prefers to develop new IP or retool existing material. As he explained, he focuses on creating new types of gameplay first and then tries to decide on which character or franchise is best suited for the job.

Time: With series like Pikmin and others like Nintendogs or Steel Diver you’ve been at the forefront of new IP for Nintendo. That said, most of your games involve taking existing IP and retooling it for new gameplay ideas. Are you more inclined these days to want to develop new IP, or to retool existing material?

Miyamoto: Whenever I start working on something I always start with creating new gameplay. After that gameplay becomes more concrete, we look at which character is best suited to the gameplay. So I guess from my standpoint, the ideal situation would be that we’re creating an experience that’s so new and so unique that we can present it to consumers with a new character or IP in a way that would be easiest for them to really understand the concept and enjoy the gameplay. But it may also be that in some of those cases it makes more sense for it to involve some of the characters that are more familiar to our fans.

Miyamoto had plenty more to say about Nintendo and how far the gaming industry has come. You can check out the full interview via the source link below.

Source: Time

Miyamoto talks about slow Wii U OS, upcoming system updates

Shigeru Miyamoto was recently interviewed by Time about the slow Wii U operating system, and what Nintendo is doing to address complaints that it takes too long to load applications and navigate menus. Miyamoto said that the console was a "project on an unparalleled scale for Nintendo" and explained that it was difficult to get a feel for how everything would interact until the system started coming together. He then stated that the company believes future firmware updates will improve things considerably.

Time: Let’s talk about the Wii U system updates. The Wii U launched with interface issues and missing applications, including slow load times for native apps. Why weren’t the slow load times caught before release, and why is the update to improve system performance taking until spring?

Miyamoto: It’s a tough question, certainly, but I think it’s also an accurate observation. For Wii U in particular I would say that in preparing the system for launch, it was a project on an unparalleled scale for Nintendo. We had multiple different teams working on multiple different segments of the hardware and its features simultaneously. Certainly we’d had experience with that type of development designing the 3DS, but with Wii U the scope of the project was far beyond our development of the 3DS hardware. And with many of those features, you don’t get a true sense for how they interact or where the advantages and disadvantages lie within the broader framework until you’re able to bring all the components together into a single unified system.

 Even during the testing phase, it’s difficult to ascertain what facets of those interactions between the applications are resulting in inconveniences for the consumer until you have an opportunity for many people and lots of consumers to try these features out — to understand how they’re using those features and what they’re doing as they’re switching between them. Since the system was released, we’ve spent a great deal of time looking at how people are using it and where they feel it can be improved, and we’re currently continuing out preparations for this first major system update that’s coming. What we want to do is make sure that when we release it, that we address as many of the different opinions about how people would like to see the system improve as we can at once. We hope to cover a wide range of requests while simultaneously ensuring it’s a very stable update to the system.

Time: Do you anticipate a significant performance upgrade to the Wii U interface itself?

Miyamoto: We think that by this summer, the system is going to be very much improved over how it’s performing currently. Of course when it comes to the actual hardware, those decisions have already been finalized, and one of the things we focused on in making those decisions was the speed of the connection between the Wii U system and the Wii U GamePad. We strongly feel the transfer speed between those two devices is so strong that it’s not something that can necessarily be achieved by other devices that haven’t been designed specifically with that in mind. So as we get into these other system-based updates, our anticipation is that because of the amount of effort we’ve dedicated to the GamePad’s wireless connection to the hardware, these additional improvements are going to make for an overall device that’s even more convenient to use.

Source: Time

Miyamoto says Wii U is the best system for Pikmin 3

GameSpot has published the full transcript of their lengthy interview with Shigeru Miyamoto, and the Nintendo legend has a lot to say. One of the games he talked about was the upcoming Pikmin 3, which is easily one of the biggest Wii U titles of the year. Here are a few interesting excerpts:

In the case of Pikmin 3, we've taken an approach with that game where we really want to take what made the original Pikmin game unique and really simply go deeper with that experience.

And so what we've done is by taking advantage of the GamePad--the second screen there--and the HD graphics that are capable with Wii U and the higher processor--we've really been able to take that original Pikmin experience and do something that is much deeper and more fleshed out this time around.

...When I create a game, I don't necessarily always try to approach it from the idea of leveraging every feature or every ability of that new piece of hardware. In the case of Pikmin in particular, the approach that we took was really less of an approach of how can we […] take advantage of what the Wii U is doing, per se, and instead how can we take what was that Pikmin experience and really make it a deeper experience for players.

So of course we're taking advantage of the graphics and improving the play control and whatnot and I guess if you were to look at it more broadly, you might not necessarily say that it would be impossible to do it on another system. But I guess speaking plainly, the idea is really that Wii U is the best system to be able to achieve all of the different things that we're trying to do with this new Pikmin game. One of the biggest features of Pikmin 3 is the fact that you have the map on the GamePad at all times and because Pikmin is a strategy game, it's the type of game that you might play the same levels over and over again. Having that map--and the fact that you have the three different leaders that you switch between to command your Pikmin--and having the touchscreen on the map will allow you to change perspective or jump to a specific leader and quickly give orders. It makes it much more efficient for you to achieve the goals that you have strategically within the game.

In addition to Pikmin 3, Miyamoto also responded to questions about the struggling sales of the Wii U. He believes that one of the console's largest obstacles is that the console needs to be experienced before it can be appreciated.

I think it's very common for Nintendo products to be the type of thing that until you play it, you don't really understand how fun it is. Wii had an advantage, because watching people play it looked interesting. When you saw other people playing a game that looked interesting. But even then, it was still the type of thing that you had to play it for yourself to confirm. And once you played Wii, people had instantly a lot of fun. And what that did was reinforce for them that what they had seen was in fact true. Certainly, I think that helped Wii.

You can read the interview in its entirety via the source link below.

Source: GameSpot

Miyamoto more interested in making new games than working on remakes

Following the announcement of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD, many gamers started wondering if Nintendo might be planning on doing additional remakes. GameSpot recently asked Shigeru Miyamoto himself if they are thinking about working on more enhanced versions of old classics, and he replied that there isn't any information on such projects that can be shared at this time. He then stated that he is personally more interested in creating new games rather than working on remakes.

GameSpot: On top of Luigi’s Mansion and Pkimin 3, Wind Waker for the Wii U is supplementing that lineup. Is Nintendo considering giving Wii U treatment to any other games, potentially older games like Metroid Prime?

Miyamoto: Of course I can only talk about the titles we’ve announced publicly. We are thinking about the possibilities around that, but there’s nothing I can share today. I guess I can say from my perspective, I’m more interested in creating new titles.

Source: GameSpot

Miyamoto says it would be "strange" not to be thinking of retirement at his age

In an interview with GameSpot, famed video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto was asked about whether or not he is thinking of retiring. He responded by saying that it would be "strange" not to be thinking about retiring at his age, but noted that his workload has remained the same. And yet, it appears that he has been taking a more "hands off" approach to new games, in order to let younger staff do more and gain experience.

"This year I’m past 60; I’m going to be turning 61 this year. So for me to not be thinking about retirement would be strange. But in fact, the number of projects I’m involved in–and the volume of my work–hasn’t changed at all.

Instead, what we’re doing internally is, on the assumption that there may someday be a time when I’m no longer there, and in order for the company to prepare for that, what I’m doing is pretending like I’m not working on half the projects that I would normally be working on to try to get the younger staff to be more involved. 

And as I like to say, I try to duck out of the way, so that instead of them looking at me, they’re looking at the consumer and trying to develop their games with the consumer in mind rather than me in mind. So it’s really more of looking at this as sort of an opportunity to really try to help develop them and bring them up.

Source: GameSpot

Miyamoto may use unrealized GameCube-GBA Link Cable ideas in Wii U games

In an interview with GamesMaster, Shigeru Miyamoto spoke about the GameCube-Game Boy Advance link cable and how it was difficult to make use of it due to the fact that not enough gamers owned Nintendo's handheld console. Miyamoto then said he may use some of his unrealized ideas in future Wii U games.

"I think it is very likely. I cannot tell specifically what ideas I used to have at the time which might be realized this time around. But as you might recall, at one of the E3 shows several years ago we showcased a game of Pac-Man Versus, which was a really interesting game. Unfortunately however it was rather hard for everyone to own four GBAs at the same time." -Shigeru Miyamoto

Source: Games Master via Nintendo Everything

Rumor: Shigeru Miyamoto stepping down as General Manger of Nintendo EAD

Is Miyamoto going to work on smaller games?

According to a NeoGAF user, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata is planning to do a major restructure of the company, expanding R&D operations in Kyoto and Tokyo. The biggest news, however, is that Shigeru Miyamoto is supposedly leaving his post as General Manager of Nintendo's EAD Division by December 2012. Miyamoto has reportedly "expressed concern that his presence is over shining all the new producers and directors creating content in the EAD Division" (the largest of Nintendo's two gaming divisions) and wants to step aside to "create a third development sector where he could work with younger developers" and focus on making smaller games that don't require major resources.

Here is a quick summary:

2013 Expected Iwata Changes
+ Major shift in Kyoto development sources involving 3 R&D buildings
+ Shigeru Miyamoto stepping down as EAD General Manager
+ Takash Tezuka becoming new EAD General Manager
+ New Groups / New Producers announced for EAD Kyoto / SPD Kyoto
+ EAD Tokyo Expansion / Masahiro Sakurai Possibly Joining EAD Tokyo
+ New Division lead by Miyamoto with younger staff focused on smaller scale games
+ Miyamoto's Departure Inspiring New IPs for the EAD Kyoto Division

The NeoGAF user cites Guardian UK, Nikkei, and Wired as sources. This will be an interesting turn of events, if true. You can read the entire post via the source link below.

Source: NeoGAF