Shigeru Miyamoto stepping down, semi-retiring from Nintendo

Shigeru Miyamoto, the face of Nintendo and creator of The Legend of Zelda and Super Mario Bros., is stepping down from his position at the company.

Though he will no longer be working on AAA titles for The Big N like The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword and Super Mario 3D Land, Miyamoto will still be around making smaller, more personal projects. This semi-retirement has the 59-year-old legend of gaming handing off the well being of his creations to a younger generation of Nintendo developers.

Here was Miyamoto’s explanation to Wired, as told through his translator:

Inside our office, I’ve been recently declaring, ‘I’m going to retire, I’m going to retire.’ I’m not saying that I’m going to retire from game development altogether. What I mean by retiring is, retiring from my current position.

What I really want to do is be in the forefront of game development once again myself. Probably working on a smaller project with even younger developers. Or I might be interested in making something that I can make myself, by myself. Something really small.

He continued by saying that this meant he no longer had the desire to work on projects so large that they required “a five-year development time.”

Miaymoto also intends for the decision to serve as a wake-up call to his younger co-workers and employees that he won’t be around forever, having seen their potential with the success of this year’s Zelda and Mario titles.

“The reason why I’m stressing that is that unless I say that I’m retiring, I cannot nurture the young developers,” he stated. “After all, if I’m there in my position as it is, then there’s always kind of a relationship.

“And the young guys are always kind of in a situation where they have to listen to my ideas. But I need some people who are growing up much more than today.”

With regards to his future plans, Miyamoto answered excitedly with his trademark grin.

“Anyway, I’m interested in doing a variety of many other things,” he said.

[Wired]