Shigeru Miyamoto is known as one of the great game designers but in later years he has been increasingly involved in the development of Nintendo hardware.
Asked by Edge Magazine if his role with Nintendo had changed over the years, Miyamoto responded: "I don't feel that my style of making videogames has changed so much. Over the years, I've tended to work on a project more deeply as the development phase gets closer to completion."
"The only difference is that when we're working on something really new like Nintendogs or Wii Music, I tend to be very deeply involved a lot earlier. For the so-called 'serious titles' my involvement tends to be much greater towards the latter stage."
"It might surprise you, but if I can think of any really significant change in my role over time, I'd probably say it's my involvement with hardware design. A long time ago, my role in designing the actual hardware was really limited - mostly it was down to designing the controller, or the controlling interface, or some of those special features that you want the hardware to include on the software side, to make design and development more efficient. It was all about simply making better software."
"But I think, probably from around the time of the DS, my involvement with hardware has significantly changed. With that project and onwards, I've been able to significantly oversee the overall development of the hardware as well as keeping an eye on the software side of things."
So Miyamoto oversees hardware as well as games. Are you happy about this or would you rather he focused on one thing?
You can read our interview with Shigeru Miyamoto in issue 50 of Official Nintendo Magazine which is on sale now...
