Miyamoto Spending Less Time on Franchises, More Time on New Titles

Retiring? Not quite. But Shigeru Miyamoto is shifting his role within Nintendo, spending less time supervising development on established franchises and more time developing new projects.

Miyamoto took the chance to discuss his new responsibilities during an investor Q&A session last week, explaining why he's chosen to step back from the high profile properties he's created for Nintendo.

"Now, I am spending more time than before on finding new ideas for new developments rather than focusing my energy on work in my (development) teams in order to solidify the contents of (existing) franchise titles. After all, developing big hit titles must be the solution. I am acting with the understanding that one big hit title can change multiple phases of a situation in the entertainment business, and I feel that finding such one big hit is my basic job."

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata followed Miyamoto's remarks with a comment on last month's minor scandal, when Wired claimed that Miyamoto would be retiring from his current position.

"During one of the interviews he accepted abroad, Mr. Miyamoto commented that he always tells his subordinates that he’s going to retire soon, in order to nurture the young developers. Mr. Miyamoto’s intention in making these remarks is to change the developers’ mindset because they will continue to believe that 'this is Mr. Miyamoto’s responsibility, not ours' unless he encourages them to envision the workplace without him."