Shigeru Miyamoto may not be a household name, but you definitely know his work. As one of Nintendo’s most prolific designers, Miyamoto is responsible for titles like Donkey Kong, The Super Mario Brothers, and The Legend of Zelda. In an interview today, Miyamoto discussed everything from the future of some of Nintendo’s most beloved games to the amiibo line of toys. Perhaps most interesting was Miyamoto’s confirmation that Nintendo is indeed working on a new console. Here are some highlights from Miyamoto’s conversation:
For those who don’t know, news of a Mario Brothers animated film was leaked in the dump of emails that resulted from the Sony Hack. Miyamoto was asked if this news was correct and if he had any thoughts on what a new Mario Brothers movie should look like. The venerable Nintendo designer said, “I heard something about that this morning. What’s interesting is that over the past 20 years, people come to us on a fairly regular basis about creating Mario movies. There are times that those ideas end right when they bring them to us, and other times we’ll listen to presentations. It’s not very unusual, and it’s something we’ve been doing for a very long time. I don’t particularly have a vision that the next iteration of Mario is going to be in film.
There’s good news for Star Fox fans. When asked about the story in the new Star Fox game he’s working on, Miyamoto stated that the story wouldn’t differ from previous Star Fox games, but that “the gameplay mechanics are going to feel very different because of the two-screen system of the Wii U with the GamePad and TV screen. It’ll make for a very fun and unique way to play.” As for his plans for Zelda on the Wii U, Miyamoto explained that they wanted to go back to the open world concept that was so beloved in early Zelda games. While he says he can’t talk much about it, he does say that Epona, Link’s horse, will be back in the new game. Epona’s inclusion shows that Nintendo really is serious about going back to the open-world feel, a move that will certainly make Zelda fans happy. As for amiibo, Miyamoto said that the future could see amiibo characters in new games and even cards.
And what about new a Nintendo console? Miyamoto responded, “For the time being our focus is on the Wii U hardware, but Nintendo as a whole has groups working on ideas for new hardware systems. While we’re busy working on software for the Wii U, we have production lines that are working on ideas for what the next system might be.” Hooray! Thanks to Miyamoto’s insight, it sounds like Nintendo fans will have a lot to look forward to in the next couple of years.