Miyamoto is done making games for ‘passive’ players

In an exclusive interview with Edge magazine, Shigeru Miyamoto has said that his team no longer wants to focus on title for people who enjoy games “passively”.

Miyamoto hopes that their games will instead challenge players, forcing them to take the next step beyond passive enjoyment, going as far as to describe the passive attitude that some people have towards videogames as ‘pathetic’.

“[These are] the sort of people who, for example, might want to watch a movie. They might want to go to Disneyland,” he said.
“Their attitude is, ‘okay, I am the customer. You are supposed to entertain me.’ It’s kind of a passive attitude they’re taking, and to me it’s kind of a pathetic thing. They do not know how interesting it is if you move one step further and try to challenge yourself [with more advanced games].”

Miyamoto also acknowledged the role of smart devices in Nintendo’s reduced need to focus on the casual market.

“In the days of DS and Wii, Nintendo tried its best to expand the gaming population,” he said.
“Fortunately, because of the spread of smart devices, people take games for granted now. It’s a good thing for us, because we do not have to worry about making games something that are relevant to general people’s daily lives.”

Though Nintendo’s releases have had less of a casual focus since the release of the Wii U, this is the first time that a Nintendo executive has publicly stated an intention to move away from the casual market that brought them so much success in the days of the Wii and DS.

Source: CVG