The video game industry has been struggling recently in some significant ways. The biggest way is simply through how many developers and publishers have been focused on trying to get video games out in the quickest way possible in an attempt to make some money versus releasing a quality title. It’s because of that and things like corporate greed that have led to many developers getting shut down or having dozens of people laid off and publishers being on shaky ground. Nintendo legend Shigeru Miyamoto is familiar with having “big hits,” and yet he’s wise enough to know that the path the other team has taken doesn’t work.
Shigeru Miyamoto did a special interview alongside Shigesato Itoi in January that was recently translated and posted on Famiiboards. In it, the two talk about game sales and attempt to define what makes a “big hit” for a company like Nintendo. Surprisingly, they said that breaking the one million mark doesn’t do that because there are plenty of video games that do that, and thus, they all would be “big hits” as a result.
When talking about how many “big hits” Nintendo needs to have to survive, Miyamoto gave an equally surprising answer:
“If we can have one big hit every three to five years, we’ll be fine. In that sense, if all our employees think about “creating a big hit” every day, we’ll be fine.”
That last part might seem a little counterproductive, as not every game worked on will be a “big hit” by his own estimations, but it speaks to how sometimes having the right mindset will lead to someone, like a game developer, putting their all into a title so that it can have the quality to potentially make it a big hit.
Both Miyamoto and Itoi later noted that “corporate greed” and only seeking to make profits is a dangerous way of doing things and that it’ll lead to inferior games and only getting to the “break-even point” versus trying to have bigger success. That’s something that truly reflects the state of the gaming industry today, as many indeed aim for profits first and not making quality titles.
The irony is that the Nintendo Switch system has had numerous “big hits” over its seven-plus year lifespan, and sometimes, it has numerous big hits in a single year! 2023 showed that in many ways, and 2024 still has that potential, given some of the big games that are still coming out for the console.
