If there’s anyone more hyped than Shigeru Miyamoto for the arrival of the Nintendo Museum, we don’t know who they are. The legendary designer and creator was the mastermind behind the project in many respects, and noted previously that Nintendo truly had decades of its life “locked away in warehouses” where no one could see it or experience it. So, he endeavored to change that. Based on the reactions to the museum so far, it’s clear that people “see the vision” that Miyamoto had. However, that doesn’t mean that EVERYONE would’ve been on board if he had pitched in a previous era of the company.
In an interview with IGN, Shigeru Miyamoto noted that there was one former head of Nintendo, Hiroshi Yamauchi, who wouldn’t have approved of the project:
“You could say that we’re sort of doing something that we are not supposed to do. If Yamauchi would hear this, I think he would tell us to stop immediately!”
You might think this is an “odd thing to feel,” but Nintendo as a whole has been a company that doesn’t rely on its past outside of its IPs. They let the things they make today speak for themselves, and it’s one of the reasons that systems like the Nintendo Switch have done so well.
“Nintendo is a company that connects with its consumers through products. We do not promote the company itself, only the products. We might be talking about how old Mario has turned but we don’t talk about how many units a certain game has sold. That’s what Nintendo has traditionally been doing, but the environment has changed and we started to revisit that thought.”
Returning to Yamaguchi, Miyamoto noted that he had a very product-focused feeling when it came to advertising. Specifically, he felt that if you “over-promoted” a product, then the product didn’t deserve to be sold in the first place. It is an interesting concept, and it’s something that has been reflected in recent times, like with how companies like Bethesda went and hyped up a certain new IP, only for it to not do as well…and then the company kept promoting it anyway, seemingly in an attempt to “force people to give it a shot.”
Meanwhile, with Nintendo titles, they let the trailers do the talking, which has led to record-breaking sales numbers for Switch games. So, while Yamaguchi might not have thought highly of the Nintendo Museum, it’s very much something that “fits the times” and honors the many eras and changes that Nintendo has gone through.
