Shigeru Miyamoto is a Japanese video game designer, producer, and game director at Nintendo, where he serves as one of its representative directors. He is the creator of some of the most acclaimed and best-selling game franchises of all time, including Mario and The Legend of Zelda. These Shigeru Miyamoto quotes will inspire you.
Best Shigeru Miyamoto Quotes
- “I think that inside every adult is the heart of a child. We just gradually convince ourselves that we have to act more like adults.” ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
- “A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad.” ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
- “To create a new standard, you have to be up for that challenge and really enjoy it.” ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
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“Video games are bad for you? That’s what they said about rock ‘n’ roll.” ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
- “Games are a trigger for adults to again become primitive, primal, as a way of thinking and remembering. An adult is a child who has more ethics and morals, that’s all. I am not creating a game. I am in the game. The game is not for children, it is for me. It is for an adult who still has a character of a child.” ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
- “Players are artists who create their own reality within the game.” ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
- “What if everything you see is more than what you see–the person next to you is a warrior and the space that appears empty is a secret door to another world? What if something appears that shouldn’t? You either dismiss it, or you accept that there is much more to the world than you think. Perhaps it is really a doorway, and if you choose to go inside, you’ll find many unexpected things.” ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
- “So you know cats are interesting. They are kind of like girls. If they come and talk to you it’s great. But if you try to talk to them it doesn’t always go so well.” ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
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“A great idea solves multiple problems at the same time.” ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
- “The obvious objective of video games is to entertain people by surprising them with new experiences.” ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
- “Nintendo’s philosophy is never to go the easy path; it’s always to challenge ourselves and try to do something new.” ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
- “A good idea is something that does not solve just one single problem, but rather can solve multiple problems at once.” ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
- “When I’m working on games I don’t think necessarily about what the end benefit of the game is going to be. Typically I’m trying to think of: “What can I do that is going to find new ways to entertain and surprise people.”” ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
- “It isn’t about games, for me, personally, and it never really was. It was about creating something – anything – far bigger than yourself.” ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
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“I’d like to be known as the person who saw things from a different point of view to others.” ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
- “Our job as the game creators or developers – the programmers, artists, and whatnot – is that we have to kind of put ourselves in the user’s shoes. We try to see what they’re seeing, and then make it, and support what we think they might think.” ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
- “Donkey Kong Country proves that players will put up with mediocre gameplay as long as the art is good.” ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
- “As long as I can enjoy something, other people can enjoy it, too.” ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
- “I think when you talk about competing against others, the problem is that you refer to something that’s been done already and try to beat it.” ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
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“I think everyone can enjoy games.” ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
- “An adult is a child who has more ethics and morals.” ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
- “A late game is only late until it ships. A bad game is bad until the end of time” ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
- “When I create a game, I try to focus more on the emotions that the player experiences during the gameplay.” ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
- “So, it’s important for us to acknowledge that we’re prone to be conservative, and in turn surround ourselves with individuals who will help break down our conservatism.” ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
- “Most people think video games are all about a child staring at a TV with a joystick in his hands. I don’t. They should belong to the entire family. I want families to play video games together.” ~ Shigeru Miyamoto, Shigeru Miyamoto quotes on video games
- “Games have grown and developed from this limited in-the-box experience to something that’s everywhere now. Interactive content is all around us, networked, ready. This is something I’ve been hoping for throughout my career.” ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
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“I don’t like all the attention. I think it’s better to let my work do the talking.” ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
- “I think that the entertainment industry itself has a history of chasing success. Any time a hit product comes out, all the other companies start chasing after that success and trying to recreate it by putting out similar products.” ~ Shigeru Miyamoto, Shigeru Miyamoto quotes on success
- “We don’t pay a whole lot of attention to the Internet until people have played the game – then we pay a lot of attention to whether people liked it. We read through it and see it, but we don’t take it into consideration. … [The Internet] is not going to dictate the direction of where the game goes.” ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
- “We can be using the same kind of technology, the same kind of techniques, but when we use it, we get something different.” ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
- “Entertainment companies always have to stay on the edge of trying to catch that certain thing that will grab people’s attention. And that thing is always changing. Nintendo has been doing this for a long, long time. Originally, we weren’t even a video game company, but we were still an entertainment company. So I can’t say what that next thing is, but I can say, at Nintendo, we’re trying to create new ways to play.” ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
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“Who knows how Mario will look in the future. Maybe he’ll wear metallic clothes!” ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
- “When we’re doing an action game, we make the second level first. We begin making level 1 once everything else is completed.” ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
- “I always try to create new experiences that are fun to play.” ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
- “This is the entertainment industry, so game designers have to have a creative mind and also have to be able to stand up against the marketing people at their company – otherwise they cannot be creative. There are not that many people who fit that description.” ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
- “Up until now, the biggest question in society about video games has been what to do about violent games. But it’s almost like society, in general, considers video games to be something of a nuisance, that they want to toss into the garbage can.” ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
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“You can use a lot of different technologies to create something that doesn’t really have a lot of value.” ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
- “Necessity is the mother of invention. I love solving things like that. Because there wasn’t enough memory, thinking of an economical way to make the movements look right was like solving a puzzle, and I had a lot of fun.” ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
- “There are big lines between those who play video games and those who do not. For those who don’t, video games are irrelevant. They think all video games must be too difficult.” ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
- “Anything that is impractical can be played. It’s doing something other than what is necessary to continue living as an animal.” ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
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“All the time, players are forced to do their utmost. If they are challenged to the limit, is it really fun for them?” ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
- “I don’t want to criticize any other designers, but I have to say that many of the people involved in this industry – directors and producers – are trying to make their games more like movies. They are longing to make movies rather than making videogames.” ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
- “Their attitude is, ‘okay, I am the customer. You are supposed to entertain me.’ It’s kind of a passive attitude they’re taking, and to me it’s kind of a pathetic thing. They do not know how interesting it is if you move one step further and try to challenge yourself with more advanced games.” ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
- “When I’m making video games today, I want people to be entertained. I am always thinking, How are people going to enjoy playing the games we are making today? And as long as I can enjoy something other people can enjoy it, too.” ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
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“What I really want to do is be in the forefront of game development once again myself.” ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
- “I am not Link, but I do know him! Even after 18 years, the Legend of Zelda never stops changing and this game is no different. We are now taking you to a world where Link has grown up–a world where he will act different and look different. In order to grow, Link must not stand still and neither will I.” ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
- “I don’t let Mario appear in just any kind of game. Mario could not appear in Zelda games. They are two distinct game worlds.” ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
- “I’m very impressed that there are so many fans – not just in Japan, but here in America – that are fond of the work that I’ve done. I’m actually kind of embarrassed by it all.” ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
- “For a long time at Nintendo, we didn’t focus as much on online play because for many years doing so would have limited the size of the audience that could enjoy those features. But certainly, now we see that so many people are connected to the Internet. It opens up a tremendous amount of possibilities.” ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
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“Providing new means of entertainment is the important thing.” ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
- “Throughout the Zelda series I’ve always tried to make players feel like they are in a kind of miniature garden. So, this time also, my challenge was how to make people feel comfortable and sometimes very scared at the same time. That is the big challenge.” ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
- “I think what’s really the most ideal thing is for the player themselves, within their own imagination, to carve out what they view as being the essence of the character.” ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
- “I think Zelda 64 is utilizing about 90 percent of the N64 potential, … When we made Mario 64 we were simply utilizing 60 to 70 percent. So we have come a long way I believe.” ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
- “I could make Halo. It’s not that I couldn’t design that game. It’s just that I choose not to. One thing about my game design is that I never try to look for what people want and then try to make that game design. I always try to create new experiences that are fun to play.” ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
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“Nowadays I think it’s really important that designers are really unique and individual.” ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
- “When I look around and see how aged cartoonists continue to work on their manga and how movie directors create new movies all the time, I understand that they would never retire. And by the same token, I guess I will still be making games somehow. The only question is whether the younger people will be willing to work with me at that far point in the future.” ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
- “If we end up creating a gameplay structure where it makes sense for, whether it’s a female to go rescue a male or a gay man to rescue a lesbian woman or a lesbian woman to rescue a gay man, we might take that approach.” ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
- “I try not so much to create new characters and worlds but to create new game-play experiences.” ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
- “I think what a lot of people see as unique is using different technology or different techniques [to make games], but I feel like, as long as you have a core that’s unlike others, that’s what ‘unique’ is.” ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
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“What comes next? Super Mario 128? Actually, that’s what I want to do.” ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
- “Originally, I wanted a machine that would cost $100. My idea was to spend nothing on the console technology so all the money could be spent on improving the interface and software. If we hadn’t used NAND flash memory and other pricey parts, we might have succeeded.” ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
- “I would prefer to grow with the team inside Nintendo rather than taking anyone from outside. It would be a joy for me if someone who was working with me became a big success.” ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
- “I used to draw cartoons. I’d just show them to some of my friends, expecting that they were going to appreciate them, that they were going to enjoy reading them.” ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
- “There are some ghost stories in Japan where – when you are sitting in the bathroom in the traditional style of the Japanese toilet – a hand is actually starting to grab you from beneath. It’s a very scary story.” ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
- “The PSP will not be able to display anything that you cannot do on a current system.” ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
