The father of Super Mario Bros. told Wired Magazine he’s stepping down from his current position at Nintendo, but Nintendo said today that he’s in fact staying.
Shigeru Miyamoto told Wired that he will no longer serve as head of Nintendo Entertainment’s Analysis and Development. He still plans to work on smaller projects, he said.
Over the last 32 years, Miyamoto has created more than 100 games for Nintendo. They include hits like Mario, Donkey Kong and The Legend of Zelda series.
“Inside our office, I’ve been recently declaring, ‘I’m going to retire, I’m going to retire,’” Miyamoto told Wired Wednesday, using an interpreter. “I’m not saying that I’m going to retire from game development altogether. What I mean by retiring is, retiring from my current position. … What I really want to do is be in the forefront of game development once again myself.”
A Nintendo spokeswoman told Reuters that actually, he’s not stepping down. “This is absolutely not true,” she said. “There seems to have been a misunderstanding. He has said all along that he wants to train the younger generation. He has no intention of stepping down. Please do not be concerned.”
Actually, fans were not concerned when they read the Wired story. In fact, they were pleased that he’d be retiring.
On social news site Reddit, subscribers of the nearly 1 million strong r/gaming community gushed at the thought of Miyamoto having more creative freedom. The game developer was the subject of at least three different posts in r/gaming.
“I think Miyamoto is a genius and every interview with him that I’ve read is full of these really endearing descriptions of what motivates him creatively,” wrote mehrlicht. “And if left to his own devices, I think he will come up with some really great stuff..”
While in San Francisco for his Wired interview, Miyamoto ran into redditor Twinrovus who was in town for some job interviews.
“While I was checking in Miyamoto walked up to the counter right next to me,” Twinrovus wrote in a post he made about the chance encounter. “I was in complete shock. We talked for a couple of minutes, and I couldn’t believe how nice he was.”
Redditors poked fun at Twinrovus, implying that he had something to do with Miyamoto retiring. Twinrovus took the criticism in stride and shared the conversation he had with Miyamoto and a photo they took together.
“I told him about the impact his games had on my childhood, and that I thought that most games today were lacking the focus on just pure fun like his games,” Twinrovus wrote. “That actually could have inspired him to quit his managerial position to work more closely on games again, but somehow I doubt I was able to do that.”
We’ll update this when we get to the bottom of this story.Photo from Twinrovus