Shigeru Miyamoto is a giant in the game industry. He is the creative genius behind Donkey Kong, Mario, Pikmin, Nintendogs and the Legend of Zelda series for Nintendo. Recently, Nintendo conducted an interview with some of the top brass at the company, and there may be a surprise for gaming fans if Miyamoto,s habit of turning his life experiences into games, holds true. Satoru Iwata, president of Nintendo remarked about Miyamoto, “[He] …made Pikmin when he was gardening and Nintendogs after owning a dog…”
Miyamoto then gave a glimpse at what his next project might be by saying, “I was a typical Japanese husband who has been neglecting family lives, but I am spending more time with my family now. I am now interested in how a family enjoys in one house, and that interest pretty much suits well with the concept of Wii hardware. In that sense, Wii will become a hardware which will satisfy my interests of the past 20 years or so, so that I am enjoying making software right now. Finally, I am doing something lately, but I think I need to refrain from talking about it today. Hopefully, I can tell you what it is in 6 months or so.”
Miyamoto,s reflection on family life may be the clue to what his next game project may be. Considering the tight connection of his outside activities and his propensity of turning these experiences into games, it would not be outside the realm of possibility to conjecture that he is working on a game based upon a family interactive setting. At the present, the only game that fits into this mode is “The Sims.”
So can we expect a Nintendo version of The Sims? Given the huge success of the pet simulation game, Nintendogs, a human version of this concept is quite likely. But as Miyamoto stated, we won,t know until “six months or so.”
