Miyamoto's hobbies are none of your business
by Randy Nelson 
{ Aug 11th 2008 at 3:00PM }
The Times makes a rather bold assumption that Miyamoto basically designs everything at Nintendo, including its consoles – he does have a good deal of influence, but the Big N has at least a few other employees – stating that, with regards to the Wii's successor, the "only place where the discussion [of its design] has any grounding is inside Mr. Miyamoto's head."
We imagine all this talk of Miyamoto's hobbies has its roots in the origins of Pikmin, which Mario's papa has publically stated was inspired by his time spent gardening, or Zelda, which was at least partially influenced by his love of exploring caves near his home as a young boy. Actually, it may be Devil World, which was based on his very favorite hobby: dressing up as a dragon and battling demons in Pac-Man-like mazes. Yep, that's definitely it.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
WRE @ Aug 11th 2008 3:06PM
This is taking intellectual property to a whole new level...
Phinehas @ Aug 11th 2008 3:53PM
Indeed. Nintendo evidently feels they own whatever is in Miyamoto's head. Sounds almost like intellectual slavery.
Psaakyrn @ Aug 11th 2008 10:26PM
Or alternatively, it may just be a personal request.
Lord knows what the world will do if he has some silly hobby like cosplay...
syrik zero @ Aug 11th 2008 3:07PM
"How else can I get money...?"
PSN & GAMERTAG: jorojoserojas - Wii FC: 0749-8609-3752-6926 @ Aug 11th 2008 3:07PM
The man is a genius, that's for sure. I wonder how he does it, you know what I mean?
Ever play a board game and think "I totally could have come up with this myself"? Well, his ideas are so off the wall that you never get that feeling. I'm glad other developers are starting to achieve that level of thinking (Katamari, Patapon, and others all have that very cool originality to them), and I hope it keeps going.
He's a weird one, no doubt - but his games are damn good fun.
Jack of No Trades 85 @ Aug 11th 2008 3:35PM
Yes he is a intelligent man, but his creative juices are being sucked dry by Nintendo. I bet Myamoto has so many great ideas for ever game genre. It kind of seems that he was forced into the casual area and is used like a religous profit swaying people onto believing some of the most shallow and uncreative games are AAA material. I love the man, trust me, but it just seems he is being held back by Nintendo's share-holders.
Deeznuts420 @ Aug 11th 2008 3:09PM
well as u can apparently see, he models shirts.
Red Leader @ Aug 11th 2008 3:09PM
Because Miyamoto is just that damn important.
PepperJack @ Aug 11th 2008 3:21PM
He has hobbies these days besides counting money?
mr mobius @ Aug 11th 2008 11:18PM
Got to do something with that money.
Next Nintendo game is maybe a series of minigames set in a strip club with Peach, Daisy, Zelda, Samus and Rosetta as strippers. One minigame is trying to slide $20 inside their pants with precision while another uses the wii motionplus to try and get as close as possible to their chests without touching them and getting kicked out of the club.
Magetto @ Aug 11th 2008 3:25PM
This is slightly off topic (well very off topic), but does anyone notice anything about the Wii poster in the background? I mean it looks like it sort of forms the shape of some mans buttocks with his genitalia hanging down.
syrik zero @ Aug 11th 2008 3:31PM
That's strange that you see things like that haha
Zertoss @ Aug 11th 2008 3:39PM
Oh god it's some kind of Wii goatse! I can't unsee it!
Fuck you Magetto!
that guy @ Aug 11th 2008 3:41PM
HAHAHAHAHAH! 'Slightly' off-topic??? That, right there, was the post of the century. I can't stop laughing. Give this man a raise.
Saria the Cat @ Aug 11th 2008 5:20PM
Wow, that either made or destroyed my day. I can't decide which.
Mr.ESC @ Aug 11th 2008 10:17PM
I read it but why the hell I had to look.
Argghhh GET OUT OF MY HEAD,GET OUT OF MY HEAD1!!!!
Thatoneguy64 @ Aug 11th 2008 3:30PM
Miyamoto's hobbies are none of your old news
Mr Khan @ Aug 11th 2008 3:37PM
It seems a bit excessive, and thus perfectly in line with what we should expect from Nintendo
j.howlett @ Aug 11th 2008 3:38PM
he should play video games, thats what i do besides draw and make thumbnails of paintings i never seem to start.
emirabal @ Aug 11th 2008 3:43PM
WHO CARES
Saria the Cat @ Aug 11th 2008 3:50PM
Well, that's bizarre. I don't think his hobbies would necessarily reveal any major development or production secrets. It's not like his brain is the "secret ingredient" in the Nintendo money-making recipe...OR IS IT?
Bloodwrath @ Aug 11th 2008 3:54PM
Am I the only person confused as to why he is holding up a 32?
Fernando Rocker @ Aug 11th 2008 4:01PM
mmmm is not a 32.
Is a W and two i's. Wii.
Aeikozz @ Aug 11th 2008 3:56PM
his hobbies are the same as mine.
playing videogames and jackin off.
serious have you ever seen him with a woman
Fernando Rocker @ Aug 11th 2008 4:03PM
He is married and has two children.
Aeikozz @ Aug 11th 2008 4:07PM
that might be so. again though have you seen him with a woman?
i still think he plays and jacks more though
Mr Khan @ Aug 11th 2008 4:07PM
Remember the "Wife-o-meter" from last year's GDC?
Kye - Me_DF @ Aug 11th 2008 4:11PM
[im wondering how fernando knows so damned much about nintendo and it's employees, but im afraid to ask]
syrik zero @ Aug 11th 2008 5:17PM
Or why he cares to know?
Vegeta (aka Ska Oreo) @ Aug 11th 2008 5:23PM
Are you serious? So should we start saying that Hideo Kojima jerks off at home alone and surfs 4chan all day long simply because we've never seen his wife or kids at press conferences or gaming events?
j.howlett @ Aug 11th 2008 5:39PM
hold up, don't you think the 4chan thing is kind of harsh, and wouldn't he go to 2chan
Aeikozz @ Aug 11th 2008 8:25PM
yees we should, as a gamer having wife and kids is something to show off almost like achivements or something.
why not have his kid dress up as link?
hell why not have his wife as zelda or peach?
i'm just sayin....
Superstar90 @ Aug 11th 2008 9:48PM
Because, Aeikozz, that would be cosplaying... and thats for people with no significant others... or lives.
Batzarro @ Aug 11th 2008 3:58PM
Because other publishers are sending their designers to search caves and work the bosses' gardens in order to unluck the secret in Miyamoto's brain.
AK @ Aug 11th 2008 4:05PM
If I would have to guess, Go-Kart racing, going to the opera, yoga, enjoying mixed martial arts, and watching gorillas play with barrels...
Rich @ Aug 11th 2008 4:08PM
He goes to pink box clubs. Google it if you don't know what that is..you'll thank me
Kye - Me_DF @ Aug 11th 2008 4:16PM
He probably enjoys watching some drift racing on his HDTV. Then tends to his large rock garden.
Later, after playing with his kids, he gets some time in on Xbox Live, then has sex with his wife while watching a porno.
juju187 @ Aug 11th 2008 5:15PM
he looks like he enjoys a good hentai with a juice box.
ice~ @ Aug 11th 2008 7:30PM
Its ridiculous that a man this creative who made nintendo what it is today with his amazing ideas and should not be held back by nintendo, who are injecting him with mind control serum suppressing his creativity so nintendo can shit out dull shallow games, I say shigeru makes his own company, SHINTENDO FTW!!!!
Bones3D @ Aug 11th 2008 8:23PM
It's not that difficult to figure him out. He uses life experiences as inspiration for games. This is actually in line with most Japanese philosophy where basically everything is "alive" in some form and should be looked upon and respected as "partners" instead of mere objects.
This is one of the major reasons a lot of the stuff you see coming out of Japan seems so whimsically absurd to us here in the U.S.
Most likely, Nintendo isn't worried about people copying Miyamoto's methods so much as it's worried about people tracking Miyamoto's daily activities as a means of predicting what the company may start creating next. Anyone who does manage this could potentially cheapen a new Nintendo franchise by beating Nintendo to the punch with a similar, but far inferior, title.
For example, would consumers still have trusted "pikmin" so much if a poor quality clone of the game had launched a few months earlier?
Saria the Cat @ Aug 11th 2008 10:54PM
Nice theory but I don't know how that philosophy applies to the development of games. If what Shiggy's daily activities are make his games, then they must be really out of the ordinary, right? Because if he has hobbies similar to other Japanese people, wouldn't there have been a Pikmin competitor by now? What kind of "special" daily activities would lead to the development of his games?
If anything, I think it's the fact that Japanese people are so private about their personal lives and have a very distinct boundary between business and personal activities that it would just seem impolite for someone to ask about Miyamoto's life outside of Nintendo. The questions probably make him uncomfortable and seem irrelevant to what he views as business discussion.
t_m @ Aug 12th 2008 4:03AM
Most japanese people's hobbies are, and i quote "sleeping and drinking".
A few also choose "drinking and driving" which sounds more worrying than it is.
Despite them all listing "sleeping" as a hobby, I've yet to meet one who lists "breathing" as a hobby... but I continually live in hope.
dalder @ Aug 11th 2008 10:26PM
I've always assumed that his hobbies included use of various psychedelic drugs. So they probably just don't want it getting out that Mario was inspired by a different sort of "power mushroom>"
Casey R Williams @ Aug 12th 2008 4:00AM
Uhhh... Everyone knows he likes psychedelic mushrooms. That was what his "gardening" hobby (that inspired Pikmin) was code for. It's acceptable in Japan, but not America, and they don't want us thinking their "21st century Disney" is just some whacked out hippie.
t_m @ Aug 12th 2008 4:00AM
Well, he loves FPS video games... but that doesn't seem to have translated into anything on the nintendo end.
I miss Pikmin...
Jack @ Aug 15th 2008 12:24PM
I say, let him be.Mario and Luigi were his friends growing up, and now you wanna take them away from him?
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