Hello everybody
Came across this comment in a Financial Times article.
https://on.ft.com/45eR7sp
Quote
This consistency of vision over the last 40+ years corresponds with the tenure of the company’s creatives, many of whom came straight out of art school:
Shigeru Miyamoto b 1952 Employed by Nintendo (1977–present)
Takashi Tezuka b 1960 Employed by Nintendo (1984-present)
Eiji Aonuma b 1963 Employed by Nintendo (1988–present)
Satoru Iwata b 1959 – 2015. Employed by HAL Laboratory (1980–2000); Nintendo (2000–2015); currently enshrined with, or maybe as the Lord of the Mountain, Satori Mountain, Hyrule – ie still on the job.
Watch Eiji Aonuma demonstrate the new Zelda gameplay. Nintendo offers more than ‘loyalty and habit’.
Unquote
The article is paywalled but it isn’t relevant. The purpose is to highlight the comments made by a reader.
Cannot help but notice that some stalwarts at Nintendo are no longer with the company or even with us (RIP Iwata). Aonuma himself mentioned feeling old in a Washington Post interview
It is hard not to notice the difference between Nintendo and other “mainstream” game publishers/developers. Just look at the amazement from rivals that ToTK was release relatively bug-free.
What do you think will happen to Nintendo as more veterans leave? Will the company be able to retain it’s “magic” and continue to produce unexpectedly delightful games?
by RoboGuilliman
26 Comments
Japanese business culture is really good at grooming future execs to share the same corporate philosophy as before. Yamauchi and Iwata both imparted values into Nintendo that will always remain. Each game series has multiple producers and directors that can be promoted to carry things forward. Miyamoto passed the main Zelda stuff to Aonuma, and he will in turn pass it to the TotK leaders.
They’re working on that aren’t they? The Splatoon director, the Mario Odyssey director, the BOTW and Tear of the Kingdom director. It seems the old guard is more and more hands off and the younger ones are taking more reigns.
When all the aquisitions were going on Nintendo talked about “Nintendo DNA” as what they were looking for in buying studios, I think they’re looking for the same thing in talent.
I think Nintendo and it’s “old guard” have done a solid job cultivating and imprinting their creative culture and design philosophy in their younger devs. I’m not too worried about them losing any of that “Nintendo magic” as more of them inevitably start to step down or transition away from the more nitty-gritty development side of things.
Case in point, the move from Mario being Miyamoto-led to Koizumi-led around the time of Mario Galaxy feels almost seamless and didn’t really miss a beat in always having that Mario charm. And iirc EPD 5 is pretty much all “young blood” compared to groups led by long-standing figures like Miyamoto, Aonuma, and Sakamoto, yet games like Animal Crossing and Splatoon undeniably feel right at home alongside other “peak Nintendo” series like Mario or Zelda.
It’s not about developers, it’s about CEO and shareholders. Developers and programmers want to make as good games as they can, but money sadly talks.
Miyamotto said before they trained the new generation. To keep the DNA magic of Nintendo.
He said this many years before. Somewhere after wii I believe. I think it will be save. Just wonder about the music, who else can make that epic music
Tbh I think the only Nintendo house that hasnt kept its philosphy and creative direction is the Pokemon group. Every other mintendo main has kept itself to a high quality without predatory dlcs and the likes. I think Pokemon is kinda just is as it is, its a money grab series now and that wont change but I think we can expect other series to stay away from this
Do we hear about a shitty working environment with Nintendos first party studios? This might be a reason why Nintendo keeps producing hit after hit. Happy employees mean better employees and overall retention of the best in the industry.
Unlike a lot of other gaming companies, Nintendo employees tend to stick around. This has allowed them to groom the younger employees to take over for the older ones when that day inevitably comes.
Aonuma is a perfect example of this. He only came on to Zelda for OoT. Miyamoto trained him to eventually take his place and now we have BotW and TotK. There may be some growing pains and things will probably be different in a lot of ways, but I don’t think we have to worry too much about the old greats retiring.
If any of them are half as good as Koizumi has been, basically taking over the Mario franchise, I’d say Nintendo is in great hands with the next generation.
At this point the “veterans” are basically part of the marketing campaign. I assume Nintendo does a very tough and good job in training their employees, for better or worse, and when needed they can keep the ship afloat for as long as it takes. The most fundamental thing about Nintendo is that it is an ancient company and has always ensured that it would keep lasting through the decades. Why should one believe that without Miyamoto, or Yamauchi, or etc it’s gonna suddenly collapse like a typical American company?
When it comes to big companies like Activision/Blizzard who just layoff workers after record profits, it makes you wonder what could have been (using Nintendo as an example). Nintendo gets flack for being super aggressive with its copyright claims but the way they treat their employees and prepare for the future is second to none.
I did’t know Iwata was younger than Miyamoto and that Miyamoto was older than Aonuma.
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Wonder why Iwata was chosen as president and not Miyamoto for example
“Just look at the amazement from rivals that ToTK’s release was relatively big-free.”
What’s more amazing is that we’ve reached a point in the industry where it’s that big a surprise for a major release to go smoothly.
Nothing.
Kozumi is being trained as the next Mario Head and maybe even the next Nintendo head, period.
Fujibayashi is heading the same exact way as Aonuma. Co-direct a Zelda game, then direct the rest while the head of Zelda supervises.
Nintendo aims to build this sort of handoff.
Even the companies they buy (like Monolith Soft) have this mentality. Monolith likes to have the newer talent come up with games, with the goal of keeping them long-term by allowing them to develop.
Nintendo will be fine. We’re seeing the new generation become the next generation in real time.
Personally as someone who is always looking at Nintendo credits and looking a lot at their development teams and teams for the games they publish, also knowing some the staff, I think they will be doing fine. Looking at Aonuma example, he’s in Nintendo for decades and still is in there as producer, but I believe Fujibayashi will continue his legacy over the years when he gets promoted to producer, just like Aonuma was the same for Miyamoto. And the same is happening with other internal dev teams in Nintendo EPD.
The professional amazement wasn’t that TOTK was “bug-free.” You’ll note it famously has an exploitable dupe bug among others.
The notable thing about TOTK was its technical accomplishments despite the limitations. The rewind mechanism, the massive multi-leveled nature of the map, the sheer processing power it SHOULD take, and the fact that they managed to elegantly fit it all within the Switch’s limitations.
It’s not that it’s bug-free. It’s that it’s doing things that would be hard on a modern console and making it look easy.
I’ve got no complaints, played Switch Sports pretty much every day since it came out, also loved Ring Fit Adventure, the LABO’s, the Mario’s, Zelda’s, Splatoons, ARMS all real good stuff in my opinion. The only games that are a little iffy are made by 2nd party like Pokemon, Smash, and Mario Sports. I think it’s far too early to judge what the future holds when currently there seem to be no signs of anything to worry about.
Besides, a company as old as that I have to believe that if worse comes to worse they have rules in place to keep a steady flow of top talent coming in following strict guidelines in how the games are made. When Miyamoto quits he’s going to have written a whole big book for employees to follow, nobody can replace Miyamoto but the employees will be using the same methods so nobody is starting from scratch.
Nintendo and valve are the only company’s games I still play. They both have the ‘old guard’ way of working on their games. Perfection before release.
I used to be an xbox guy but now every triple-A game sucks no matter the console. EVERY. GAME. SUCKS. Unfinished garbage. Battle passes. Digital downloads.
Nintendo’s future executives are currently making things like Splatoon. They’ll be fine.
I think it’s pretty clear that Nintendo is great at creating young talent and passing down the “Nintendo DNA”. I mean, despite their business screw ups, when it comes to games, they’ve maintained a consistent quality which is objectively unrivaled in the industry, for decades now. The only way you can do that is growing talent and transmitting the culture.
Just look at how studios come and go while nintendo keeps being relevant.
ARE YOU READY FOR LOOTBOXES AND GAMES THAT WILL MAKE YOU PAID TO FIX IT!!
You use Miyamoto, Aonuma etc as marketing.
The soul of a game is usually the director, the veterans at Nintendo seem to be playing the producers role.
Tears of the Kingdom was directed by Hidemaro Fujibayashi
I doubt Miyamoto did anything at all for the past games tbh
Point being, the magic already has been passed on
[Yoshiaki Koizum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoshiaki_Koizumi)i has killed it with Mario Odyssey and has that IP in good hands, and he’s been the one to push great stories in several other games. They probably have another decade in them to shape the next generation of Nintendo.
I imagine major heads on the Splatoon/Animal Crossing team will be given a lot of influence.
I always felt like Nintendo would have passing their game developent ethos and creativity onto the next generation “under control” (I’m not getting into their business practices…)
I’d be more worried about this at other companies, it feels like the older ones are just unwilling/able to pass on their attitude, chase profit at all costs (this will destroy most creative ventures in the end) or are basically “bullied” out. I think cultural issues are a factor. Not that worried about Nintendo *games* going forward.
The company attracts the same kind of people who share Miyamoto and the rests mindset, so I think we’ll get the same magic but with new fresh ideas.