Shigeru Miyamoto today blamed the story that broke on December 7th about him stepping down from his position as head of game development on a mistranslation. For those who missed it, Nintendo immediately denied that Miyamoto was walking away from that position and that he most certainly was not retiring.
Miyamoto-san has now informed the San Francisco Chronicle that, “Nothing has changed, and nothing will be changed in the near future as to my role inside of the company.”
Despite his assertions that he is not walking away from his current job, the game designer did admit that he will be spending some time working on smaller games. “Whenever we try to create something brand new, we have to start from a very small, capable team,” said Miyamoto. “When a big company is trying to do something really new, it’s not a good idea for many people to work on it from the start.”
The whole mistranslation thing sounds sketchy at best, as I previously discussed. It’s much more likely that he will at least be playing a smaller role in management of the company’s various wares going forward. His employer doesn’t want anyone thinking that the man isn’t in complete control of everything the console maker is doing creatively at all times, so the unnamed translator looks like he is being positioned as the fall guy for the “retirement” story.
[Source: San Francisco Chronicle]
[Image via CNET.]
