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Discussion Miyamoto: If we have a game that sells 30 million units every few years we'll be fine (Interview with Itoi)

F

franzen23

Piranha Plant
From an interview in January 2024, translated by google so take with a grain of salt. Surprised there weren't any english articles about this interview or discussion because there's a lot of gold in it. Good look into Miyamoto's mind and how Nintendo operates.
https://www-1101-com.translate.goog...=ja&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp

Miyamoto: If we can have one bighit every three to five years, we'll be fine. In that sense, if all our employees think about "creating a big hit" every day, we'll be fine.
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Itoi: Well, for Nintendo, 1 million units is not considered a huge hit.

Miyamoto: I agree.

Itoi: Oh, it only sold 1 million copies," (laughs). In that case, roughly how many titles do you consider to be big hits, Mr. Miyamoto ?

Miyamoto: About 30 million.

Everyone: (Murmuring)
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Miyamoto: Well, we're working to make it happen, so if it breaks even, we should consider it a failure, but it seems like everyone talks as if it's breaking even .

Itoi: Well, I wonder about that in today's society. I think there are a lot of places where people would say it was a break-even and a good experience .

Miyamoto: Is that so? But if there's no profit and we're just breaking even, then it's just tiring, right? I'm sure the people who worked with me would think that that's not what we worked for . So, the reason why I don't praise my co-workers half-heartedly along the way is because, anyway, the reason I think it was good to work with them is because "we sell a lot."
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Miyamoto: I worked really hard, but I just got my money's worth. I don't make things or do things just to get my money's worth , I think everyone works hard every day to make something that sells, becomes a big hit, and makes people say, "I can't stop laughing."
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Miyamoto: As we make various preparations, there are times when something catches our attention and we think, "Huh?" or "This might be something that will turn out well." We can sense such things from the very beginning. However, if we are only thinking about greed or wanting to stabilize our profits, we will overlook this.

Itoi: Yes, if you are only motivated by greed, you will think first about how to avoid losing money. You will inevitably think in terms of the break-even point.

Miyamoto: That's right. I think the most dangerous thing is to miss something that has the potential to grow . I think the good thing about our company is that we've been good at nurturing those seeds .
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“Well, for Nintendo, 1 million units is not considered a huge hit.”

Itoi would certainly know this first hand as Mother and Mother 2 didn’t even crack 750k in worldwide sales 😭
 
For example, you might say that if you sell 1 million copies, the development costs will be paid off, so you should spend 5% of that on advertising. I understand that, of course. But if you spend 200% on advertising, you don't know if you'll sell 100 times as much. So what is the break-even point?
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This bit makes me think of the way Nintendo approached Metroid Dread and Metroid Prime Remastered, as well as Pikmin 1+2 and Pikmin 4. Franchises that had new entries marketed like crazy, while re-releases of older entries were given minimal attention. With this part in mind, I can't help but think Nintendo kinda got sick of doing surveys to gauge the potential of these franchises, and decided to just do a proper experiment to figure out where the floor and ceilings for these series actually are and determine where the break-even point truly lies.
 
Reading the interview as a whole it doesn't look like he's talking about 30 Million Units Sold as some kind of "ideal profit point" as much as he is talking about it as a mindset that drives people in the company to try and nurture ideas with lots of potential.
 
From this metric they have four 30M+ hits, which makes sense.

And most of them are in the span of 6-7 years.

MK 8
Animal Crossing
Breath of the wild
Smash ultime
 
Well, this is one of the most disgusting aspects of Shigeru Miyamoto and Nintendo in my opinion, there is nothing wrong with profitability from a company perspective, but I'm sorry as a developer a lot of the time you really just want to do what you want to do and don't care about the market feedback, if you are always aiming for mass popularity and high profitability all games will just be mediocre, and the irony of it is that this same point of view is also coming from Shigeru Miyamoto: "Works which only think about pleasing the gamers will not become bestsellers".
 
Sin & Punishment said:
By this metric, Nintendo has 4 big hits on the Switch. Although Mario Kart is as big as two big hits.
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I think that’s the point. He said as long as they have a big hit every few years, they’ll be fine. If the Switch lasts 8 years and has 4 big hits, that’s a big hit every 2 years. I think they’re doing okay!
 
Concernt said:
That sounds like an extremely unpleasant work environment, but I never got the sense Miyamoto is the easiest to work with so I guess I'm not surprised.
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I think this is where Shigeru Miyamoto contradicts himself, the fact that there are no potential rumors suggesting that Shigeru Miyamoto is forcing his subordinates to make bestsellers, and considering that Shigeru Miyamoto is both a pioneer and a genius when it comes to game design, he's well aware of the fact that companies and developers have different tendencies.
 
Concernt said:
That sounds like an extremely unpleasant work environment, but I never got the sense Miyamoto is the easiest to work with so I guess I'm not surprised.
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Yeah… it’s important to note how culturally differences when it came to 80s-90s Japan and modern.

His roles is mostly on theme parks and movie, which I think fits him best, also him being a supervisor and someone who gives personal advice is also for the best.

Since in recent year Koizumi has probably taken a bigger role in the EDP games structure and management, since most of the notable big lead of Nintendo EDP are quite young (like 30-50).

If this article was released a couple years ago or in the beginning life cycle of the Switch I would have been extremely worried, but you can see the change in leadership, since Miyamoto and other don’t have as much control, especially in hardware and software.
 
Aufhebung RPG said:
Well, this is one of the most disgusting aspects of Shigeru Miyamoto and Nintendo in my opinion, there is nothing wrong with profitability from a company perspective, but I'm sorry as a developer a lot of the time you really just want to do what you want to do and don't care about the market feedback, if you are always aiming for mass popularity and high profitability all games will just be mediocre, and the irony of it is that this same point of view is also coming from Shigeru Miyamoto: "Works which only think about pleasing the gamers will not become bestsellers".
Click to expand...
Concernt said:
That sounds like an extremely unpleasant work environment, but I never got the sense Miyamoto is the easiest to work with so I guess I'm not surprised.
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Miyamoto is a legendary developer but seems like a kinda shitty boss.

kotaku.com

At Nintendo, Working All Night Is 'Mario Time'

Over the years, game development companies have found all sorts of euphemisms for unpaid overtime, but Nintendo’s might be the best. If legendary designer Shigeru Miyamoto ever comes up and tells you it’s “Mario time,” you’re in for a long night.
kotaku.com kotaku.com

That said, Nintendo has extremely high employee retention, so I guess workers have something giving them a reason to stay.
 
Hero of Legend said:
Umm guys, maybe notice that the damn thing was Google Translated, so don't take every word as 100% factual until a real translator does the job.
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In fact, I've seen the Chinese translation, and it's pretty much the same thing - 30 million copies does qualify as a "hit" for Shigeru Miyamoto.
 
0
On one hand, this thing is google translated so like...I'm gonna wait before making any full judgements but also this is a reminder that Nintendo is a shitty capitalistic company like all the others. They might be "better" than most but honestly, it just says a lot about our current hellworld that the 90's capitalistic monster is now seen as the good guy in comparison.
 
Steve said:
Yeah… it’s important to note how culturally differences when it came to 80s-90s Japan and modern.

His roles is mostly on theme parks and movie, which I think fits him best, also him being a supervisor and someone who gives personal advice is also for the best.

Since in recent year Koizumi has probably taken a bigger role in the EDP games structure and management, since most of the notable big lead of Nintendo EDP are quite young (like 30-50).

If this article was released a couple years ago or in the beginning life cycle of the Switch I would have been extremely worried, but you can see the change in leadership, since Miyamoto and other don’t have as much control, especially in hardware and software.
Click to expand...
It's not a good thing that Shigeru Miyamoto is no longer involved in the management of game development, because the fact is that many Nintendo projects would likely have been in disarray at the development stage without Shigeru Miyamoto's involvement and management, but of course that was twenty years ago, and it's not necessarily the case now.
 
Mekanos said:
Miyamoto is a legendary developer but seems like a kinda shitty boss.

kotaku.com

At Nintendo, Working All Night Is 'Mario Time'

Over the years, game development companies have found all sorts of euphemisms for unpaid overtime, but Nintendo’s might be the best. If legendary designer Shigeru Miyamoto ever comes up and tells you it’s “Mario time,” you’re in for a long night.
kotaku.com kotaku.com

That said, Nintendo has extremely high employee retention, so I guess workers have something giving them a reason to stay.
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I think Japanese work culture to be one of the most interesting thing in the world.

It’s actually crazy how much work people work there.

But from recent article with Mario Wonder not having a deadline and Totk getting a years worth of polishing makes me think there was a work culture shift in Nintendo.

Plus Miyamoto is from a bygone era of overworking, since I remember Ayunoma being overworked with Majoras mask, Windwaker and twilight princess. It was until breath of the wild that made him relax, heck you can see it physically how much he’s improved from the recent direct.

So I’m hoping that theirs been a shift during the Switch Era.
 
That’s a bit of an outrageous expectation lol

That said, they’ve built a huge base for their software in the Switch era. It’s now up to them to make sure they can hold on to it and build on it meaningfully in coming years.
 
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Not even Nintendo is immune to needing the success of major games to fuel the big cash reservoir they've accumulated that keeps their operations afloat. Back during the Gamecube days there were quotes about how one or two more consoles of that caliber would be liable to sink the company. Those single digit million performing franchises that they cultivate are successful in their own right and diversify their offerings -- if not they wouldn't continue investing into them -- but you also wouldn't be seeing them as often if you didn't have a Mario and Zelda game every half a decade to really rake in the dough.
 
Aufhebung RPG said:
It's not a good thing that Shigeru Miyamoto is no longer involved in the management of game development, because the fact is that many Nintendo projects would likely have been in disarray at the development stage without Shigeru Miyamoto's involvement and management, but of course that was twenty years ago, and it's not necessarily the case now.
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I think someone else is doing that now.

He’s stated how busy he’s been with Movies and theme parks, i personally think it’s a good thing that someone else will be taking over, plus I think Koizumi has probably taken over that role.

Since he’s the
Senior Executive Officer
Deputy General Manager of Nintendo EPD
 
Steve said:
It’s actually crazy how much work people work there.
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In fact this is the reason why China and Japan have high portability requirements for playing games, the workload is in fact very high. Japan is a lot better than China though, at least they get off work on time most of the time and have two days off a week, whereas in China there is a high probability of working 10 or even 12 hours a day with only one day off a week.
 
Aufhebung RPG said:
In fact this is the reason why China and Japan have high portability requirements for playing games, the workload is in fact very high. Japan is a lot better than China though, at least they get off work on time most of the time and have two days off a week, whereas in China there is a high probability of working 10 or even 12 hours a day with only one day off a week.
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Can feel that pain in certain seasons.
 
i know smash fans are about to misuse shigeru miyamoto's quote to shit on a game they dont like using a 1 million copies metric for their excuse
tenor.gif
 
Vall said:
Isn't Pikmin the main thing he's still heavily involved with in game Dev?

If so it's kind of odd how Badly Pikmin seemingly contradicts this philosophy.
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This is the paradoxical side of Shigeru Miyamoto's role as both a manager and a developer. Shigeru Miyamoto is a once-in-a-century genius in game design, but at the same time, as a company manager, he has to think in terms of profitability.
 
Steve said:
Can feel that pain in certain seasons.
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Yes, it can be very pain in the summer, white collar workers in the office are actually relatively not that pain, but a lot of times workers on the assembly line and in heavy industry can have a hard time.
 
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I know this is translated and that Nintendo has enough series (3D Mario, Mario Kart, Pokemon, 3D Zelda, Smash etc) that can sell 30 mil for this to be sustainable but this sounds incredibly dystopian lol, like something that'd come out of EA or something. Luckily actions speak louder than translations and we've clearly seen that Nintendo does scare about smaller successes on Switch.
 
Vall said:
Isn't Pikmin the main thing he's still heavily involved with in game Dev?

If so it's kind of odd how Badly Pikmin seemingly contradicts this philosophy.
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Not really. Miyamoto has openly said he believes Pikmin should be more successful than it is. The fact that he still pushes the series forward if anything is pretty indicative of the mentality he expresses in this interview, per his quote he says if they don't reach the heights this time, they'll shoot even higher next time.
 
I really hope people don’t blow this out of proportion. Nintendo is now in a position to expecting 30 millions sale from games once in a while and thats a great thing for many of us. They know that the big hits sustain works on many much smaller releases every year and hopefully nurture them to big hits status. It doesn’t mean that selling less than 30 millions is a failure. It is funny that just one 30 millions sales game would be a landmark achievement for many companies though.
 
Steve said:
I’m curious how many people actually read the article.

after reading what I got was ,,Anything can become huge, only if you try and reach for the star’’.
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I read this article at least a couple months ago, and I'm surprised so many people haven't seen it.
 
0
He's obviously talking about what's necessary to keep the company afloat. Switch during its 7 years had 4 games that sold more than 30 million, which means that the company is doing well financially and that they can make games from franchises that are not big hits. That explains the resurrection of less successful franchises lately.
 
I think it’s important to include this.

Miyamoto: As we make various preparations, there are times when something catches our attention and we think, "Huh?" or "This might be something that will turn out well." We can sense such things from the very beginning. However, if we are only thinking about greed or wanting to stabilize our profits, we will overlook this.

Itoi: Yes, if you are only motivated by greed, you will think first about how to avoid losing money. You will inevitably think in terms of the break-even point.

Miyamoto: That's right. I think the most dangerous thing is to miss something that has the potential to grow . I think the good thing about our company is that we've been good at nurturing those seeds .

Which makes sense why franchise like Pikmin and Metroid exist.
 
Steve said:
I think it’s important to include this.

Miyamoto: As we make various preparations, there are times when something catches our attention and we think, "Huh?" or "This might be something that will turn out well." We can sense such things from the very beginning. However, if we are only thinking about greed or wanting to stabilize our profits, we will overlook this.

Itoi: Yes, if you are only motivated by greed, you will think first about how to avoid losing money. You will inevitably think in terms of the break-even point.

Miyamoto: That's right. I think the most dangerous thing is to miss something that has the potential to grow . I think the good thing about our company is that we've been good at nurturing those seeds .

Which makes sense why franchise like Pikmin and Metroid exist.
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Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka have both expressed a similar viewpoint, that if you design a game with only the consideration of whether it will sell well or whether it will cater to the players, the end result will be precisely that you won't be able to make a best-selling work.
 
Steve said:
I think it’s important to include this.

Miyamoto: As we make various preparations, there are times when something catches our attention and we think, "Huh?" or "This might be something that will turn out well." We can sense such things from the very beginning. However, if we are only thinking about greed or wanting to stabilize our profits, we will overlook this.

Itoi: Yes, if you are only motivated by greed, you will think first about how to avoid losing money. You will inevitably think in terms of the break-even point.

Miyamoto: That's right. I think the most dangerous thing is to miss something that has the potential to grow . I think the good thing about our company is that we've been good at nurturing those seeds .

Which makes sense why franchise like Pikmin and Metroid exist.
Click to expand...
Added to the OP!
 
This translation is awful, I remember reading a better one when it first came out. It's such a shame when bad translation spreads as facts amongst the community. Rules 1, never trust texts and quotes online. Especially from a different language.
 
I even just checked the sales charts and I'm surprised Splatoon is still in the 10 million copy class, that does seem to have upside and I think it deserves to be in the 20 million copy class.
 
SpaceGodzilla said:
not naming names but from some of people's comments it's becoming increasingly true that reading comprehension is dead
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Nah, people don’t like reading articles, even though OP accidentally missed some vital points.

My take away from the article was ,, yeah having couple of million copies seller is important, but it’s also important to note that anything can become big and successful’’

They later on mentioned Wii Fit.

And Metroid and Pikmin are prime example of IP that has potential to become something huge, from games, merchandise and movies.
 
Aufhebung RPG said:
Well, this is one of the most disgusting aspects of Shigeru Miyamoto and Nintendo in my opinion, there is nothing wrong with profitability from a company perspective, but I'm sorry as a developer a lot of the time you really just want to do what you want to do and don't care about the market feedback, if you are always aiming for mass popularity and high profitability all games will just be mediocre, and the irony of it is that this same point of view is also coming from Shigeru Miyamoto: "Works which only think about pleasing the gamers will not become bestsellers".
Click to expand...
Miyamoto: A big hit is 30 million sales, but we only need that every 3~5 years

What you understood: we only care if the game sells as much as possible, fuck the art

Let's not jump to conclusions please
 
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