Nintendo director Shigeru Miyamoto has opened up about how the company drives innovation within the company, and well as managing its family-friendly image without appearing too infantile or “childish” for its core gaming audience.
In this week’s issue of Famitsu magazine – as translated by Siliconera (thanks, VGC) – Miyamoto repeatedly quoted the mantra “peace of mind as key to Nintendo’s child-friendly market positioning.
“If I were to express Nintendo’s qualities in words then it is also ‘peace of mind'”, Miyamoto said. “There’s peace of mind when looking at it as a parent and you can have it in your living room. We’ve put great effort into creating something that can be the center of family amusement.
“There was a time when Nintendo was called childish, but after continuous work on our priorities the efforts began to show around the Wii that gave us the image of ‘peace of mind’.
“The standard sense of Mario is that he won’t murder someone but isn’t good enough to not smash bugs. This is engraved into everyone’s mind,” he added.
Miyamoto also reflected on Nintendo’s innovations, saying part of its goal to “make things that have yet to be seen” comes from thinking about customers and not “current trends”.
“What really makes something Nintendo to us comes from truly thinking about the customers. It’s not about the market or the current trends […] If you try making something that sells, it eventually ends up becoming like something that’s already out there. If what you make looks like something that might already be out there, then it won’t sell well. That’s why Nintendo makes things that have yet to be seen.
“If you make something for the sake of selling then it’ll have all kinds of failures,” he said. “The most important thing is to make something you believe is fun, rather than something that would sell.”