Shigeru Miyamoto discusses his approach to Nintendo‘s characters and why he views them as a theatrical troupe.
Shigeru Miyamoto is responsible for the creation of some of the most iconic video game characters of all time. Mario, Luigi, Bowser, Peach, Link, Yoshi, Zelda, Donkey Kong, Fox McCloud, the Pikmin, and more. All of them were all created by Miyamoto. Recently, thanks to The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, more of these characters have crossed over for the first time outside of the realm of a Super Smash Bros. game.
Shigeru Miyamoto Compares Mario to Mickey Mouse
During an interview with Nintendo Dream, Miyamoto explained that he views the characters of Nintendo as a troupe, and it wasn’t until Super Smash Bros that they decided to finally have them interact. He also compared the mentality he had toward his creations to Walt Disney’s original view of Mickey Mouse.
“It’s like Walt Disney insisted that ‘there’s only one Mickey Mouse in the world,’ but when there were two attractions, he had no choice but to have two Mickeys, so he reluctantly decided that ‘they wouldn’t appear in the same place.’ Similarly, Nintendo has avoided mixing characters from various games,” said Miyamoto.
“I think of Nintendo as a ‘Nintendo Troupe.’ The Nintendo Troupe has a variety of talents, and they come up with the mechanics of the game and use the characters that best suit those mechanics. So, when Nintendo makes a game, they start by thinking about the mechanics without knowing whether it will be a ‘Mario,’ a ‘Zelda,’ or something completely different. They’ve always made games by deciding things like, ‘This would be better as a ‘Zelda’,’ or ‘We should create a new character.'”
Shigeru Miyamoto Believes He May Have Said No to the Idea of Mario Interacting With Fox McCloud
Furthermore, Miyamoto explained that, had this been a completely in-house production, he probably would have vetoed the idea of character crossover. However, thanks to the movie being a collaboration with Illumination, he was forced to look at the situation more critically and consider how they could logically get Fox to interact with Mario.
“If it were a licensed production, I think I would have said ‘NO’ the moment I was asked, but since we were working on it together, I thought, ‘Maybe it’s possible.” From there, I actively thought about what kind of appearance would be most welcome if it were to happen. So, it’s not like every single Star Fox character makes an appearance; only Fox actually makes an appearance.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Miyamoto discussed some of the twists and turns from the recent Mario Galaxy film, revealing that some of the new lore developments may carry over into the Mario video games. Read more about that here.
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