Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto acknowledged in a Famitsu interview this week that “it’s good to create new characters.” At the same time, the company has to be “strict in judging whether they’ll really work globally.” While sharing his thoughts, Miyamoto did say that Nintendo needs “to be more proactive” in creating new characters.
His full response is as follows:
“We’ll be flexible in that regard, but it’s good to create new characters. However, I think we need to be strict in judging whether they’ll really work globally. Even during the development of Splatoon, there were times when we thought, ‘If the characters are going to be like this, wouldn’t it be better to just use Mario?’ And then, when we came up with the prototype for the Inklings that are out there now, we realized, ‘With these, there’s no need to use Mario.’
It’s been 25 years since I arrived at Pikmin, which was the result of my own pursuit of a globally appealing character, so we need to be more proactive to create new ones. I’ll leave that to the younger generation (laughs).”