This pretty much mirrors his comments in September when speaking to OfficialNintendoMagazine; he said was leaving Mario in the hands of Yoshiaki Koizumi and Zelda in the hands of Eiji Aonuma. Miyamoto is not retiring from the games industry, and doesn’t rule out the possibility of him being principal creator on a future project… but it does seem his role at Nintendo will become more of an advisory nature.
Miyamoto has been known to work on smaller personal interest projects like Nintendogs, but I can’t help but feel a little uneasy about the future of Nintendo’s core titles. The Wii U is hurting badly for must have games… and without that touch of Miyamoto magic, they could see their fanbase continue to shrink.
The interview is mostly directed towards Koizumi and Super Mario 3D World. There are a few interesting tidbits, such as no planned DLC for Super Mario 3D World, and that they’ve had the technical ability for online multiplayer in a Mario game since Galaxy, but have chosen to keep the multiplayer local only.
Do you think Miyamoto’s apprentices can rise to the challenge?