The Shigeru Miyamoto Archive

Table of Contents

Jump right in:

| 1983-1996 | 1997-1998 | 1999-2000 | 2001-2003 | 2004-2007 | 2008-2009 |

| 2010-2011 | 2012-2013 | 2014-2015 | 2016-2017 | 2018-2023 | 2024-2027 |

| Lost, Suspected, Incomplete, Unscanned, Untranslated |

Introduction

Shigeru Miyamoto is arguably the most accomplished and influential video game maker in the world, having created some of the most recognized characters and some of the best selling game franchises such as Super Mario, The Legend of Zelda, and Donkey Kong. He has worked at Nintendo for his entire career spanning more than 40 years. In that time he has continuously been designing, producing, and directing game development, granting him a perspective few others have been able to achieve.

But this isn’t a biography, it’s a chronological collection of interviews, appearances, writings, and other records of Shigeru Miyamoto’s words, with my own summary of each.

I have done all of this for two reasons. First, to create a nicely organized and helpful record of the words of an influential figure that has had a huge impact on the world of interactive entertainment. This is in some ways a history of Nintendo and how they make games as well as a big chunk of video game history. Second, to create an entertaining and easy to skim through history of Nintendo through the eyes of its most famous creator as he talks about his career and the creation of many of his most important works. A way to relive the history of the changing landscape of gaming while revisiting what it was like to follow the latest updates on games you were looking forward to.

There are currently over 900 entries, including those that have not been translated to English.

Overview of Year Pages

1983-1996

Major Releases: Donkey Kong, Mario Bros., Famicom, Super Mario Bros., Famicom Disk System, The Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels, Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic, Super Mario Bros. 3, Game Boy, Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Super Mario World, F-Zero, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Super Mario Kart, Star Fox, The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, Donkey Kong Country, Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island, Super Mario RPG, Nintendo 64, Super Mario 64, Wave Race 64, Mario Kart 64

Overview: This first page covers the largest stretch of years, with the earliest entry being Mr. Miyamoto’s deposition in the case of Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Nintendo, Co., Ltd., which also includes some design documents for Donkey Kong. Following that are conversations with The Tower of Druaga’s Masanobu Endo and with Dragon Quest’s Yuji Horii. Most of his interviews in the 80s are with Japanese technology and gaming magazines, but books like Terebi Game Denshi Yuugi Taizen and Gamer Handbook are specifically about video game design and history.

Some topics that will come up again and again in the future are covered here, such as how Mario was designed and the story of how he came to join Nintendo and start making games. There are already comparisons between movies and games.

There’s a lot of love for The Legend of Zelda series and many interviews include his childhood experiences exploring caves.

Mr. Miyamoto already has a big reputation in Japan and says he blushes at being called a genius. This reputation grows throughout the 90s as Nintendo Power and other English gaming magazines start to take an interest in interviewing Mr. Miyamoto. I believe Nintendo Power is the first to call him “the Steven Spielberg of gaming” in 1995. Many interviewers are asking him about game design and how Nintendo makes games. Expanding past gaming press there is the beginning of some curiosity about games from non-gaming media.

While he says he’s not famous and isn’t recognized in the street, he does apparently get letters asking for photos.

He has some interest in the Super NES CD-ROM, but he’s not sold on every game needing to be a CD-ROM.

It wasn’t brand new but there’s a lot of questions about the Super FX chip in 1995 and 1996.

The first of many E3 appearances happens in 1996, with select press getting an early look at Super Mario 64 and getting to ask Mr. Miyamoto questions.

1997-1998

Major Releases: Star Fox 64, 1080° Snowboarding, Game Boy Color, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Overview: There’s quite a few interviews about the Nintendo 64 and its capabilities, and he seems excited to be using polygons. Getting used to the analog stick is a frequent topic and he brings up the four controller ports quite often. At one point he says he is working on 10 Nintendo 64 games. After talking up the potential of the 64DD being able to write data it is abandoned quickly and many games he mentions never come out.

After a single group interview session at 1996’s E3 Mr. Miyamoto now has many interviews at each event.

He talks positively about the Tamagotchi and how such a simple low tech toy can prove to be very popular.

When asked about online gaming his responses vary quite a bit. Sometimes they are something interesting he’d like to explore, sometimes they are too expensive and difficult for consumers, and sometimes they are mere trends that he’s not interested in chasing.

Several times he talks about how much of the N64’s power a game uses, Super Mario 64 being 40-60%, Star Fox 64 at 70-80%, and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time at 90%.

He theorizes that Nintendo isn’t leading the market because they aren’t making enough role-playing games, but he also thinks the market for such games is shrinking.

What dominates the latter half of this period is The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, a game that was likely more hyped than any other in history at the time. He laments that it took 50 people to make the game. In the lead up to release he has several interviews with Shigesato Itoi for his website, the first of many with Mr. Itoi that will happen over the years.

1999-2000

Major Releases: Super Smash Bros., The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, Paper Mario

Overview: Many gaming magazines are interviewing Mr. Miyamoto during this period and he starts his Ask Miyamoto! section in Nintendo Official Magazine.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time has come out and it’s a huge success and remains a popular topic all throughout this period. It wins Japan Media Arts Festival’s 1998 Digital Art Division Grand Prize as well as six awards at The Annual Interactive Achievement Awards.

The 64DD is released in Japan and there’s a lot of questions about the games coming out for it. Many of these end up cancelled, including Earthbound 64, and the 64DD never leaves Japan.

Paper Mario comes up a few times in interviews, one of the few role-playing games he has ever worked on, while he expresses a dislike for the genre. Several months after Final Fantasy VII’s release he says that the role-playing game market will shrink.

Mr. Miyamoto mentions Mario being more mature in Super Mario Sunshine which gets some attention and speculation, but this amounts to Mario’s look changing slightly to be less childish, as Mr. Miyamoto puts it.

2001-2003

Major Releases: The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons and Ages, Game Boy Advance, GameCube, Luigi’s Mansion, Pikmin, Super Mario Sunshine, Metroid Prime, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, F-Zero GX

Overview: By this point most of Mr. Miyamoto’s interviews are with non-Japanese media and many now-defunct websites interview him.

There is a lot of GameCube promotion, he says it’s well balanced, easy to develop for, and that developers can do anything they can dream of with it. He’s not totally enthusiastic about moving to DVDs for games, but talks a lot about how Nintendo is making sure loading times are kept short. There’s talk of easily moving the GameCube from room to room thanks to its handle. He says he is working on 30 titles at once.

Mr. Miyamoto is repeatedly asked about online games on the GameCube and he repeatedly says that not enough people have broadband and that such games are too expensive before changing the topic to “communication games” like Animal Crossing and touting Game Boy Advance and GameCube connectivity. At one point he explicitly says he’s not interested in making online games. This view somewhat softens later to explanations that online games are exclusive to too small a group.

The biggest controversy by far is The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker’s cel shaded graphics. There are many snide questions about them and his answer is usually to say that it will feel natural once you’re playing it. This is around the time of Grand Theft Auto III’s release and huge success as many question why Nintendo isn’t making more mature games and Mr. Miyamoto responds that Nintendo does not make violent games while emphasizing that their games are for everyone, not just children.

It’s during this time that he explicitly states that he doesn’t like role-playing games because it’s not fun to be so bound, and that anyone can be good at them.

He starts to talk about gaming having become too complicated for everyone, as work on the Wii begins behind the scenes.

2004-2007

Major Releases:, DS, Nintendogs, Mario Kart DS, Wii, Wii Sports, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Super Mario Galaxy, Wii Fit

Overview: Promotion for the DS begins and the most common selling point seems to be how easy it is to use because of the touch screen. Nintendo begins moving towards a more casual audience as the DS becomes a hit and the Wii also launches to strong sales. Mr. Miyamoto talks quite a bit about how much his wife, who doesn’t like playing games, loves Nintendogs. More and more mainstream press wants to interview Mr. Miyamoto and talk about the DS and Wii.

2005 brings the 20th anniversary of Super Mario Bros. and there is an interview once again diving into the history of its creation, but overall there is not much made of it.

Mr. Miyamoto talks about the Wii Remote in the second-ever Iwata Asks in 2006, and will eventually be the most frequent guest in the interview series.

As he talks about the Wii and the Wii Remote he reiterates many times that game controllers have had too many buttons and it was too confusing for many people. This led to the gaming industry only appealing to a core audience. He says gaming has a poor reputation and that fewer people are playing games. The stereotypical image of a gamer is brought up several times, which he wants the Wii to change. Several times he mentions the idea of watching someone play the Wii and wanting to join in, and the Wii being a living room device that is inviting to others.

Many interviewers ask Mr. Miyamoto about the Wii’s relatively poor graphics and he says that not everyone has a high definition television and that it is expensive to make such games.

In 2007 Mr. Miyamoto makes his first appearance in an investor Q & A.

2008–2009

Major Releases: Wii Music, New Super Mario Bros. Wii

Overview: This is a bit of a quiet period, Iwata Asks and big E3 presentations continue, and Mr. Miyamoto talks a lot about various Wii games.

Many gaming magazines have been closed down but the few remaining continue to get interviews, along with a mix of other media outlets including TV channels, websites, and non-gaming magazines.

During this period he says that he has been working more on hardware design than before.

He starts talking about The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, but it won’t come out for another two years.

There are a lot of interviews about Wii Music, and he seems to be really excited about it.

The focus with New Super Mario Bros. Wii is to bring Mario games to a broader audience, and it finally fulfills his dream of a multiplayer Super Mario game.

2010-2011

Major Releases: Super Mario Galaxy 2, 3DS, Steel Diver, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D, Star Fox 64 3D, Super Mario 3D Land, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

Overview: Mr. Miyamoto is less involved in game development, but is still interviewed about many of Nintendo’s new games.

The 3DS is released, alongside remakes of two N64 games that he was heavily involved with. Stereoscopic 3D is touted as a major feature, being able to accurately judge where you’re going to land when jumping in 3D is something that’s brought up many times.

Super Mario Bros.’ 25th anniversary receives a lot more fanfare than the 20th, with multiple interviews and videos, while The Legend of Zelda’s 25th anniversary sees the release of The Legend of Zelda: Hyrule Historia, for which he writes the foreword.

Much is made of The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword’s intuitive controls, and how good Wii MotionPlus is at reading your movements. He says that this game is a turning point in the Zelda franchise and that it is an open world game.

Near the end of this period the topic of Mr. Miyamoto’s retirement comes up. During a Wired interview he says that he tells everyone he is going to retire to get them used to the idea of him not being around. This causes enough worry that Nintendo’s stock price goes down and a statement is quickly issued saying that Mr. Miyamoto is not in fact retiring.

2012-2013

Major Releases: Wii U, Nintendo 3DS Guide: Louvre, Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon, Pikmin 3, Super Mario 3D World

Overview: As Mr. Miyamoto becomes more of a spokesman and executive; he becomes less involved with making games, acting as producer on fewer titles. At one point he says that he spends more time on ideas than content. The fallout of the retirement saga continues and he reiterates that he has been training the next generation to take over for him some day. The Wii U launch during this period has a rocky beginning, but he does a lot of promotion for it.

The Wii U’s promotion centers on the living room experience and providing a way to access entertainment, something that was brought up with the Wii, but not as often. Much is made about being able to play the Wii U even when someone else is using the living room television, and about using the GamePad as a remote. As time goes on he admits that Nintendo took a long time to design the Wii U and that they have had issues setting up the development environment, so game releases have been slow.

Nintendo starts making use of YouTube and making more promotional videos with its developers. The first Nintendo Directs are during this period and Mr. Miyamoto makes his first appearance in 2013 for Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon.

Miiverse launches and he uses it to announce the beginning of the Year of Luigi. There are also several posts about Pikmin 3 and its Secret Memos.

There’s quite a few Pikmin 3 interviews that took a while to get translated by fans, or were never translated at all. Meanwhile there’s a lot more promotion for Nintendo 3DS Guide: Louvre than you would expect.

He now describes a typical game as taking 50-60 people to make.

2014-2015

Major Releases: Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, Splatoon, Super Mario Maker

Overview: The Super Mario Bros. 30th anniversary event coincides with the release of Super Mario Maker and there are many retrospective looks at the series alongside promotion of the new game and discussion of how to design Mario levels.

Nintendo starts Nintendo Treehouse Live @ E3 livestreams where they interview developers and demonstrate new games, some of which feature Mr. Miyamoto.

More nontraditional outlets, such as popular YouTubers, interview Mr. Miyamoto as Nintendo starts to focus on using social media to reach people.

Mr. Miyamoto makes a surprise appearance at the Nintendo World Championships 2015 to sign a 3DS XL for the winner and runner-up.

He talks about how Splatoon came to be, and how it was made by younger developers.

He says he could never be a film director, and later says that Nintendo might look into making movies.

There is a lot of promotion for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which would be delayed to launch concurrently with the Switch.

Taking a further step back from game design, in September 2015 Mr. Miyamoto becomes a Creative Fellow at Nintendo, guiding developers rather than acting as one.

2016-2017

Major Releases: Star Fox Zero, Star Fox Guard, Super Mario Run, Switch, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Super Mario Odyssey

Overview: 2016 has more entries than any other year in the archive due to the amount of promotion for Star Fox Zero and Super Mario Run.

While there were a lot of interviews in 2015 about Star Fox Zero, it was delayed into 2016, resulting in a second round of interviews. Many of these are in person with YouTubers where they play the game together. He goes into detail about how intuitive the controls are and how Star Fox Zero is an authentic action game.

Super Mario Run is announced and released quickly, marking Mr. Miyamoto’s first and only foray into making mobile games. He demonstrates the game at the Apple Keynote. He praises Apple and says they have a similar philosophy as Nintendo. He speaks several times about the game’s accessibility and fixed price point. He emphasizes that there are no microtransactions so that parents will feel safe letting their children play.

Pokémon Go’s popularity is massive enough to get Mr. Miyamoto talking about it despite him having nothing to do with making it.

Super Nintendo World is announced in late 2016, and he talks about their goals to reconnect with older players.

The NES Classic Edition also releases in late 2016 and there are more retrospective interviews about some of the games he worked on.

Although he was only a “supervisor” on Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle he is interviewed about it several times. He was careful about letting Ubisoft use the Mario IP, but seems quite pleased with the game.

While he had gone on many interview tours for new hardware and Zelda games in the past, the Switch and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild are a change in course, with Mr. Miyamoto staying more in the background. For Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey he says his job was mostly to play prototypes and give feedback. He promotes Breath of the Wild alongside Eiji Aonuma before release and talks about how many little details come together to create a realistic world and how much freedom the player has, like the original game. Like with Star Fox Zero he has to explain why the game is delayed.

He says younger people at Nintendo were the ones mostly in charge of designing the Switch.

2018-2023

Major Releases: Super Nintendo World, Super Mario 3D All-Stars, The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Pikmin 4

Overview: Mr. Miyamoto talks up some Nintendo games, but is only distantly involved in them as his focus shifts to theme parks and movies. This is the start of posts from Nintendo on Twitter/X that begin “This is Miyamoto”.

Mr. Miyamoto does a tour of Super Nintendo World in a Direct and there are many interviews about it as more locations open around the world. There are several Nintendo Directs, and eventually interviews, discussing The Super Mario Bros. Movie alongside Chris Meledandri. After decades of hearing it he says he doesn’t like being called the Steven Spielberg of gaming.

Super Mario Bros.’ 35th anniversary is celebrated in 2020 with more retrospective interviews and the release of Super Mario 3D All-Stars, which he barely talks about.

Charles Martinet is replaced as the voice of Mario and Mr. Miyamoto talks about his new role as Mario Ambassador.

Pikmin 4 releases and Mr. Miyamoto makes his first appearance in a Ask the Developer discussion.

2024-2027

Major Releases: Nintendo Museum, Switch 2, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie

Overview: Mr. Miyamoto hosts a Nintendo Direct that gives a tour of the Nintendo Museum ahead of its opening. He talks about wanting to show what kind of company Nintendo is to the public. Two more movies are announced.

Donkey Kong Country is added to Super Nintendo World and Mr. Miyamoto again gives a tour in a Nintendo Direct.

Mr. Miyamoto introduces Nintendo Today! in a Nintendo Direct.

Super Mario Bros.’ 40th anniversary begins with a Nintendo Direct in which Mr. Miyamoto discusses various Mario games and The Super Mario Galaxy Movie. He does several interviews for The Super Mario Galaxy Movie with Chris Meledandri and attends the premiere in the U.S. and Japan.

The Legend of Zelda movie is delayed, but Mr. Miyamoto announces who will be playing Link and Zelda. He later announces that the release date has been moved forward slightly.

More About the Archive and its Entries

I have not included anything that someone has said about Mr. Miyamoto, or their recollections of something they heard him say. This would not only make this archive unmanageable, but such recollections are less reliable than a recorded interview. Minor appearances where Mr. Miyamoto does not speak are usually not included, but may be if they are deemed important.

Final names for games and systems are always used, even if they are referred to by code names in the interview. I also use the full name of a game, series, or peripheral at least once before shortening it. North American English names are used when possible, though not when a very specific thing like the Famicom Disk System and not the Nintendo Entertainment System is being talked about.

I generally use the earliest recorded archive of a web page possible. A surprising amount of these have additional photographs that have disappeared from the article over time.

Mr. Miyamoto uses the term “network game” or “network play” a lot and I have changed most of these to “online”. I don’t know if this is a translation quirk or somewhat old-fashioned word usage on his part, but it does consistently seem to be how he refers to online features.

Abbreviations are generally avoided to make things easier to read for those not familiar with various gaming jargon.

This archive will be updated periodically as more is found and Mr. Miyamoto continues to give new interviews, but don’t expect up to the minute reporting.

How Entries are Formatted

The publication and the title, when applicable, are on top in big blue letters. If the article is a publication reporting on another publication’s article or if the entry has not been translated it will also appear here in parenthesis.

Publication Date: This is when the entry was published, not necessarily when it took place. Magazines are listed as the month that appears on the cover, but these are often a few weeks ahead of when they actually start to go on sale. Sometimes only a year is known.

Subject(s): The major topics, including games and systems being talked about.

Format: The most common format will be a transcribed interview, where every word of an interview has been written down. Video and radio interviews are just listed as “Interview”. Q & As involve a group of people taking turns asking questions. There are also presentations, which are speeches and often include game play footage. Demonstrations involve someone playing the game in real time. There are a few essays, which refers to written works even if they are very short. There are some social media posts from Miiverse and X.

People: This field lists the people involved, including interviewers, translators, and other people people being interviewed. It generally does not include people who weren’t there when Mr. Miyamoto was being interviewed. Some interviews also include quotes from people providing further context on a story, they are not included. Sometimes it seems as though an interviewer will get to ask several people a few questions over e-mail, and those answers are mixed together in an article. In those cases only the interviewer and Mr. Miyamoto are included in this field.

Link: A link to the source in English. I always try to get the original whenever possible rather than reports about it, but it’s not always possible.

Archive Link: A link to an archived version. Many sites change how their URLs are formatted or just go offline over the years, so it’s important to keep a more permanent version.

Japanese Link: The original source in Japanese, whenever possible. Occasionally this is a language other than Japanese.

Japanese Archive Link: An archive of the original source in whatever language.

Video: If there is a video of the interview or presentation I try to use a YouTube source when it is possible. If there a lot of embedded videos on a page I have to change some to links to keep loading times reasonable.

Scans: If the entry is about a magazine interview I will provide scans whenever possible.

Translator: I want to make sure the people who do the hard work of translation are explicitly credited here whenever possible. This field only applies to non-official sources, or fan translations.

Notes: Pertinent context or other information often goes here, such as what event an interview took place at.

Summary: It’s important to note that these summaries only include Mr. Miyamoto’s statements, I have not included others who are part of the interview or event and sometimes I have reworded things a bit to include enough of the question to provide context. Please do not quote from the summaries as if they are direct quotes from Mr. Miyamoto, refer to the original source.

For summaries I have tried to be concise while keeping interesting details. Always check the source if something sounds odd or doesn’t make sense.

“He” in the summary will almost always always refer to Shigeru Miyamoto, and I have tried to make it very obvious when it isn’t. “They” generally refers to Nintendo or the team Mr. Miyamoto was working with.

I generally skip over statements about not being to answer a question, thanking someone, hoping that players enjoy a game, or descriptions of how the controls work.

How You Can Help

Feel free to contact me if you see a typo or if you spot some kind of formatting issue on Bluesky or e-mail me at thespritecell@gmail.com.

There’s a whole page with hundreds of interviews that are lost, thought to exist, incomplete in some way, not scanned, or which are untranslated and I welcome any help.

| 1983-1996 | 1997-1998 | 1999-2000 | 2001-2003 | 2004-2007 | 2008-2009 |