Miyamoto: Retro could handle a Zelda game, smartphones aren't competition
The full transcript of Wired's interview with Shigeru Miyamoto -- in which the industry legend triggered some panic over his future -- has been posted. Surprisingly, that pseudo-retirement news isn't even the juiciest angle; Miyamoto also discussed the company's troubled recent past, as well as its potentially Miyamoto-less future.
He explained that Nintendo's goals this generation have focused on "the expanding of the gaming population," a task which would seemingly put them at odds with the ever-increasing smartphone market. Miyamoto posits that his company isn't "directly competing" with phones; rather, both might just have increased the size of the gaming market, and "expanded the definition of videogames" themselves.
In the more recent past (last week, in fact), Nintendo launched the Retro-developed Mario Kart 7 for 3DS, a project which Miyamoto said succeeded due to its multicultural development approach. "We were able to join forces in order to realize a variety of different courses, a variety of different tastes," he explained. "I think that's one reason how it worked out well between a Japanese development team and a Western development team."
It seems Retro has earned the games industry maven's trust, as Miyamoto added, "As you know, we have already collaborated with Retro for the Metroid Prime series in the past. And I think when we talk about any other franchise, Zelda might be a possible franchise for that collaboration." We think we speak for everyone when we shout in support of this idea while doing fist pumps into the air. Check out the full interview for more on the future of Zelda, the 3DS, the Wii U and the other pies Miyamoto's got his fingers in.
