Latest news with #ShigeruMiyamoto
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Hunter Schafer Urged to Play Princess Zelda in New Movie
Some fans have a clear idea of who they want to play Zelda in the upcoming movie based on the video game, The Legend of Zelda. There's no question that Hunter Schafer, who has starred in HBO's Euphoria, resembles the videogame character. Nintendo announced the live-action Zelda movie in 2023. "The film will be produced by Shigeru Miyamoto, Representative Director and Fellow of Nintendo and Avi Arad, Chairman of Arad Productions Inc., who has produced many mega hit films," Nintendo wrote then. Some fans are hoping that the Internet buzz that Schafer might be cast as Zelda is true. "Hunter Schafer as Princess Zelda is THE vision," a fan wrote on X. "She's a great actress, too. I'd be so down to see her in the role," another fan wrote. "She's perfect, though! She was born for this role!" wrote another person. The latest buzz came after an X influencer named Daniel Richtman tipped that Schafer might actually be tapped to play the Zelda role, but fans are debating whether they believe it. "IG RPK EXCLUSIVE SCOOP," Richtman's subscriber-only post on X started on May 29. Schafer is "being eyed for the role of Zelda in the live-action Legend of Zelda movie," CBR reported, citing Richtman's locked-down "scoop." This is "in part because of her physical resemblance to the iconic video game princess, CBR reported. A Reddit thread emerged to discuss Richtman's post, with the poster declaring the news "very exciting if true." Another wrote that "she genuinely looks like Zelda." However, others cast doubt on the reliability of the tip. Richtman has been debated on Reddit before, with some calling him an "extremely reliable trailer leaker." His post has people buzzing, though, about the possibility of Schafer playing Zelda, which some fans have been urging for a while. According to The Pink News, the live-action film "will be inspired by one of the most beloved franchises in the gaming world." Schafer stars as Jules Vaughn on Euphoria and also appeared in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, as well as Cuckoo, according to IMDB. The film "will be produced by Nintendo and Arad Productions Inc., and directed by Wes Ball. The film will be co-financed by Nintendo and Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc., with more than 50% financed by Nintendo. The theatrical distribution of the film will be done worldwide by Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc.," according to Nintendo. "By producing visual contents of Nintendo IP by itself, Nintendo is creating new opportunities to have people from around the world to access the world of entertainment which Nintendo has built, through different means apart from its dedicated game consoles," the company Schafer Urged to Play Princess Zelda in New Movie first appeared on Men's Journal on May 30, 2025
CNET
5 days ago
- Business
- CNET
Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto Discusses the Blending of Worlds Between Movies, Theme Parks and the Switch 2
Over the past month, I have lost myself in multiple Nintendo worlds. I explored Super Nintendo World inside Epic Universe, the new theme park in Orlando. I was immersed in the new games arriving for the Nintendo Switch 2. I even watched the Super Mario Bros. movie on the Apple Vision Pro in 3D. Nintendo feels like it's crossing between worlds itself lately. The cool Power-Up Bands visitors wear in the new theme park also work as Amiibo -- Nintendo's toys that unlock gameplay -- on the Switch. There's an augmented reality Mario Kart ride at Epic Universe and another AR-powered Mario Kart game for the home. Even the Switch 2's launch games, Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong Bananza, mirror Super Nintendo World's two biggest ride themes. It's all coming together in time for the Switch 2's worldwide launch on June 5. I had the chance to talk with Nintendo's legendary game designer Shigeru Miyamoto while at Epic Universe's grand opening. We chatted about game and theme park design, the future of AR and wearable tech and why the Switch 2 and Super Nintendo World resemble each other so closely. The conversation below has been edited for clarity and length. Now Playing: Theme Parks, Games and Movies Are Blending: Epic Universe Is a Sign of the Future 07:15 I just went through Super Nintendo World. How did you solve making a land that's this engaging and playable so Nintendo? As I wore the Power-Up Band, I kept thinking about that. Miyamoto: First of all, going back to when it was originally decided that we were going to work with Universal, I think there was a match and creativity in that both Universal and Nintendo have always wanted to create something, an experience that's never before seen. And I think that comes in the form of interactivity. The technology's there to make that interactivity possible. But the challenge comes, how do we make that comfortable? How do we make that user-friendly? The first step we took was getting in touch with the technical folks at Universal. And upon discussion, we thought, maybe we can base the interactivity on Amiibo, because we have experience with Amiibo, and we decided to use that as a basis. But there's always an app that's necessary, so there's the question of who's going to handle the app building. And it was at that time that Universal was looking into and researching apps to be used in the theme park. So that's where two ends met. Tapping Power-Up Bands into Super Nintendo World activates extras. The bands also work as Amiibo with the Switch. Numi Prasarn/CNET I've looked at a lot of wearable technologies, and I was thinking about how the Power-Up Band didn't need a phone or charging. And I inevitably think about the relationship between this and all the things that we do at home, how this works as an Amiibo -- where else can it go? Miyamoto: I'll start with, there's really nothing to announce at all here. With that said, the idea of Amiibo, once you deal with the server-side data, there's a lot that you can potentially do with that. And taking into consideration we've had our player base create Nintendo accounts, and there's NSO, a subscription-based service, I feel like there's a lot of possibility. What we wanted to do is really go back to the origin and make sure that we grasp the essence of what 8-bit Mario was. Shigeru Miyamoto One feeling that I had is that when you come to this park, you're already living in a world of Mario. You've maybe been playing the games at home or you watched the film, and they blend in interesting ways. Nintendo seems to be in so many different areas now. I was curious how you feel about that. Miyamoto: For me, as someone who worked on the original arcade game at the time, all we were able to do was create 8-bit art. And obviously myself, having wanted to be a manga artist at one point, I had this vision of what kind of world I wanted to portray and convey to the player. But obviously, the technology was limited in what I could do. So I would take steps like, for example, on the side of the arcade cabinet or on the control panel, there's artwork. That's the kind of thing that I had to do to really get across to the player that this is the world I want to convey. But now, with the advancement of technology, there's so much more realism available in video games as the characters, as the world becomes 3D. And now, we're actually making 3D real-life things out in the world. And it really opens up a lot of potential, and a lot of possibilities, when we're able to collaborate with people who have the technologies to bring these things to life. There are so many versions of Mario games, so many ways people have experienced it. In the park, how do you balance that against creating timelessness? Miyamoto: That's certainly a topic that has crossed our minds, and something we've put a lot of thought into. Because, as you said, there are many different versions of Mario. There's Main Line Mario and spin-offs. And now, when we create something like this, creating a part with real-life Mario, even if we bring the latest version of Mario, it will no longer be the latest in a few years. What we wanted to do is really go back to the origin and make sure that we grasp the essence of what 8-bit Mario was. The portal to Super Nintendo World features what's visibly an 8-bit icon. Scott Stein/CNET When you look at the almost 40 years of history, you'll see that Nintendo really treasures the characters that we create in its first generation. We have deep roots and strong roots, and that's what allows us to really create these kinds of worlds. Because the roots are solid, we're able to chase a little bit of what the latest technology allows us to do, or maybe go slightly off the beaten path and try something explorative. But again, it's really the fundamentals that really we focused on so that fans of the series and of the IP can really rest assured that their IP is still safe. When we're talking about parks, one of the very core fundamental themes that comes up is, how do we treat Mario? What do we do with Mario in this 3D real world? It was with the Nintendo 64 that Mario leaped into the 3D world, and obviously, there's the movie. Mario has gone through a lot of evolution. But when you look at some of the backdrops behind where Mario's action takes place, it hasn't evolved as much. And we were thinking about how we should approach this, it was Universal that came back to us with a real-life recreation of a question block. We spend a lot of time on things like just the surface, the texture of the blocks, how real does it need to be to make it feel like Mario? If we do too much, or if we don't do it enough, it feels fake. We spend a lot of time trying to figure out the perfect balance. The construction was done indoors, and then we actually take it out to the parking lot and look at it under the real sun and see, OK, here's what it looks like in reality, and then take it back and make adjustments. And then an extension to that was, what if a sound came out when we hit it? So they were able to create something that has a sound effect. And we thought, oh, this is actually kind of fun. When we're talking about Mario and Mario's landscape, there's a lot, but it really boils down to blocks and pipes, and making sure that we take the time and effort, and invest all of that into making sure that real people can interact with the blocks, go into the pipes. And that laid the foundation for everything that you see now. When you look at the portal in Epic Universe and how the portal links to the pipe, it just feels like it blends into it very naturally. When we talked about how people are going to enter Super Nintendo World, at first we thought we'll need to build a Peach Castle. But then, stepping back, we thought it's got to be through a pipe. And that's what resulted in Super Nintendo World being very Mario-like. The AR visor on Super Nintendo World's Mario Kart ride was devised years ago, but it could hint at ideas to come. Numi Prasarn/CNET Speaking of playing with technologies, one of my favorite topics that I cover a lot is augmented reality. I was so excited to try the Mario Kart Bowser's Challenge ride with AR, and I was curious how it felt compared to other headsets I've used. During the pandemic, I used Mario Kart Live Home Circuit and reviewed it at home. I was curious about how it still feels groundbreaking. What did you see in that tech, and where do you see it now? Miyamoto: It goes back to what I had mentioned about Power-Up Bands. Technology continues to evolve as VR and AR, but really the important factor is the [comfort], how user-friendly it is. During development of the Mario Kart ride, there was a point where we were running on hopes and predictions. We had to really wonder: Is this going to be possible by the time we need to open the park? When in discussion with Mark Woodbury, he and I both wanted to do something new, provide a new experience. So he said, "You know, it's going to be challenging, but let's just do it." And so we were able to get to a point where you see so many characters on screen, even all the Koopalings. And so, looking five years into the future, I'm sure there are a lot more exciting things we could do. Obviously, we create entertainment for the home for the most part. And I feel like we're still not at a point where there are headsets that are perfectly comfortable [to use] 24 hours a day. And so I think that helped me focus on the work [of] creating a headset for the theme park experience. The Switch 2's launch games include Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong Bananza, paralleling Epic Universe's Nintendo attractions. Scott Stein/CNET I've had a lot of Nintendo experiences this past month. With Epic Universe, and then Switch 2 launching; seeing Mario Kart and Donkey Kong there, and then playing Mario Kart and Donkey Kong, I see this kind of blending of experiences. They feel connected. Do you see it that way more going forward, that they'll inform each other? Miyamoto: First of all, I think there's the concept of really being IP-focused. Obviously, we are an entertainment company that has created games, but now that focus has been based on IP. When we're talking about theme parks, we don't have experience. So we collaborate with professionals, great people that have a lot of experience working with theme parks. Same goes for movies. And within that, we're able to bring something that's a very specific kind of knowledge and experience that only Nintendo can provide. Having experienced that kind of collaboration has really felt very good, and I feel like there's something there. But when you think back, I myself was just drawing manga, and I wanted to create toys. But I wouldn't have been able to create games without, say, programmers. So when you talk about how we develop games at Nintendo, I think it really lends itself to being able to collaborate with external partners like this. Now that we have all these aspects, there are people who start to interact and engage with our IP through video games. Someone might be introduced and start interacting with them through the theme park or the movie. So I really feel like there's a lot of potential to expand ideas. And in that sense, you could say that there's a lot more blending of worlds.
The Verge
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Verge
Nintendo's bold new era is full of safe bets
Nintendo is entering a new era. While most everyone associates the company with video games, for the last few years the brand behind Mario has been steadily expanding itself into something much larger. 'I think people view Nintendo as a gaming company, but we have always thought of ourselves as an entertainment company,' Nintendo's senior managing executive officer, Shinya Takahashi, told me in 2023. Design legend Shigeru Miyamoto echoed the same idea at the opening of Nintendo's first museum last year. 'What I wanted to express with this museum is that we are first and foremost an entertainment company,' he said. To that end, Nintendo has entered into new areas like theme parks and Hollywood films. At the same time, it's now attempting to maintain its foothold in games with the launch of the Switch 2, a follow-up to its most successful home console to date. Each of these moves is a bold bet designed to broaden Nintendo's scope — but each one does that in the safest possible way. As Nintendo gets more ambitious, it's also getting less risky. The Switch 2 is the most obvious example. It's right there in the name. Instead of switching things up with a left field idea like the Wii's motion controls, Nintendo is sticking with what works. The Switch 2 retains the same form factor as its predecessor, but with a bigger screen, more powerful internals, and redesigned controllers. Given that the Switch has sold more than 150 million units over the last eight years, it makes sense for Nintendo to be a little boring here, and simply refine a concept that it knows works. It even plays most of the same games. The first two major first-party exclusives for the console — Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong Bananza — feed into this idea, with new features built largely around the Switch 2's enhanced power. In Mario Kart it's a large open world that connects its race tracks, while Donkey Kong lets you smash the world around you to open new areas and pathways. That safeness points to a larger way of thinking within Nintendo beyond its next console. Each of Nintendo's recent big bets had a similar amount of risk-aversion to it. When the company finally decided to exorcise the ghosts of the live-action Super Mario Bros. movie from the '90s, it partnered with Illumination, the animation studio behind existing hits like Minions and The Secret Life of Pets, which had previously been trusted with Dr. Seuss adaptations The Grinch and The Lorax. The result of this partnership, The Super Mario Bros. Movie, was a playful homage that stuck closely to the source material. It earned more than $1 billion and is getting a sequel next year. The upcoming live-action Legend of Zelda movie is a touch riskier, but there Nintendo recruited Wes Ball, a relatively unheralded director who nonetheless has a track record of successfully stewarding action franchises like Planet of the Apes and Maze Runner. In both instances, Miyamoto — the guy who created both Super Mario and The Legend of Zelda — is involved, serving as a producer. That involvement is a key part of this expansion. Nintendo is attempting to mitigate risk by remaining deeply involved in all of these new ventures. That's one way to avoid a movie where Bowser — sorry, King Koopa — is Dennis Hopper playing some kind of evolved dinosaur, and Bob-ombs walk around wearing Reebok sneakers. Miyamoto has made a point to be a part of these new initiatives, dating back to when Nintendo released its first proper mobile game with Super Mario Run. This includes Nintendo's theme parks. It started with Super Nintendo World at Universal Studios Japan in Osaka, and the company has since expanded with a locations in Los Angeles and Orlando, with another planned in Singapore. Much like its partnership with Illumination (which is under the Universal Pictures umbrella) Nintendo once again joined forces with a known quantity, one with a track record of re-creating fictional worlds ranging from Harry Potter to Jurassic Park. 'We had this shared idea of trying to create something new and impressive, and the idea of wanting to create something that's truly interactive,' Miyamoto told me in 2023 about the collaboration between Nintendo and Universal. 'In that sense, our involvement wasn't just a matter of reviewing assets or reviewing designs. But really trying to get down to the nitty-gritty of how people are going to experience this, and what their experiences are going to be. And we had a lot of meetings to discuss and nail down what we wanted to accomplish here.' A similar ethos runs through the official Nintendo museum in Kyoto. It exists at a much smaller scale than most of Nintendo's other ventures; there's only one location, with no announced plans to expand, and it's unlikely to bring in significant revenue compared to a feature film or home console. But it's also designed to be a pure expression of the vision of itself that Nintendo wants to present to the world. And that vision is squeaky clean. While there are plenty of interesting details about Nintendo's history, including the time long before video games even existed, there's nothing new to learn about any of the company's failings or controversies at the museum. It doesn't even explore any of the people who have worked at the company over the last century. Without any of that messy dirt, the museum is yet another safe bet. So far, this approach has been working. The Switch's success has allowed Nintendo to operate from a position of strength, and it has parlayed that into successful ventures in other areas. Early interest in the Switch 2 seems to suggest this won't change any time soon. It's understandable that the company doesn't want another flop like the Wii U or Virtual Boy, but at the same time some of its most notable successes came from zigging when others zagged. The one piece of Nintendo hardware that has sold more units than the original Switch is the Nintendo DS, a strange little handheld with two screens that supplanted the iconic Game Boy line. Whereas the Switch was once a trailblazer, it's now facing increased competition as the leader of a fast-growing category of devices. There's a careful balancing act here. If you play it safe all the time, you run the risk of becoming boring. That's fine in small doses, but for a company that succeeds largely on its creative instincts, being seen as dull is about the worst possible future for Nintendo. Maybe the company is relying on its games to exude its wilder, more inventive instincts, or smaller projects like a charming alarm clock or DIY cardboard accessories. The bigger Nintendo becomes, the more it has to lose — and right now it seems intent on not messing with that.
Washington Post
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
This is Miyamoto. And it's Nintendo's world.
ORLANDO — Shigeru Miyamoto wanted to share what he calls 'a little bit of a strange story' as he sat in a lavish and hushed lounge tucked in the middle of Universal Orlando, where the third Super Nintendo World theme park opened Thursday. Now 72, the most influential creator in the video games art form has come a long way from his youth as an industrial design student at the Kanazawa College of Art, a tiny public school. He was a lifetime and a world away in Florida to open another theme park he helped design, but for a moment, his memory traveled back to his college days to rediscover the first time he built a world to enter and play.
Japan Times
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Japan Times
In Nintendo's backyard, foreign indie game devs are thriving
British programmer Dylan Cuthbert found himself in Kyoto unexpectedly. 'I knew nothing about Japan or the Japanese gaming industry when I first came to visit Nintendo back in the summer of 1990,' Cuthbert, 53, recalls. 'I was told I was going 'next week' and just hopped on the plane.' While working as a programmer for Argonaut Software in the U.K., Cuthbert says he 'developed a fun 3D demo on the Game Boy.' A representative from Nintendo saw it at (a trade show) and was so surprised he set up a meeting in Kyoto with Gunpei Yokoi, creator of the Game Boy. The demo became X, one of a very small number of 3D games on the handheld. The title opened a door into Nintendo for Cuthbert, who would go on to program Star Fox for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) — under the tutelage of no less than the legendary father of Mario, Zelda and countless other Nintendo franchises. In the early 1990s, Dylan Cuthbert worked closely with Shigeru Miyamoto before founding Q-Games, his own studio, in Kyoto in 2001. | COURTESY OF DYLAN CUTHBERT 'Shigeru Miyamoto taught me to never get too attached to an idea,' Cuthbert says. 'Sometimes for the betterment of the game you need to drop ideas that you really like.' After the advent of the PlayStation in 1994, Cuthbert went over to Sony to work on the new console both in the U.S. and Tokyo. 'But Kyoto kept niggling at the back of my mind,' he says. In 2001, Cuthbert founded Q-Games a few blocks from Kyoto's Karasuma Oike Station. 'Creating my own studio had been my dream since I was 13,' he says. 'I was already making little games for my school friends to play at that point. Back then I named my studio 'Unique Productions,' which became just 'Q.'' Cuthbert says that Q-Games was "the first foreigner-owned independent game studio in Kyoto." | Q-GAMES The studio is currently working on Dreams of Another, which Cuthbert describes as a game where characters 'use a new form of rendering to depict people's dreams, which you explore.' One gameplay mechanic involves shooting a rifle to create objects instead of destroying them. It's a type of anything-goes creativity that Cuthbert says was in short supply earlier in his career. 'It's easy to become a drone when you're in a big corporation, but at an indie studio you need to be proactive,' he says. 'I'm always trying out new experiments.' An example of that risk-taking spirit paying dividends is the indie game festival BitSummit, which was cofounded by then-employee John Davis and had its inaugural event in 2013 'Q-Games was the first foreigner-owned independent game studio in Kyoto,' says Cuthbert. 'This showed it could be done, and then BitSummit paved the way for other studios to set up here, such as Chuhai Labs. We were the catalyst that helped populate Kyoto with foreign game devs.' The superfan One such dev is American designer Jake Kazdal. 'I grew up down the street from Nintendo of America and worked there as a gameplay counselor,' Kazdal, 51, reminisces. 'People would just call me when they got stuck in games.' Jake Kazdal (front row, right) was the only foreign-born developer on the team behind Rez. | COURTESY OF JAKE KAZDAL However, going to Japan was a long-held dream. 'I thought all games were made in Japan,' says Kazdal, who would later move on from customer support to 3D art and animation. 'Mario, Zelda and Metroid were huge influences on me. Also, my dad owned pizza parlors so I grew up playing Japanese arcade games.' One day, a visitor noticed the Japanese toys on Kazdal's desk, and they fell into conversation. 'I blurted out that I'd love to work at Sega, and he said he used to work there and offered me to meet his boss who was coming to the Electronic Entertainment Expo (a now-defunct trade show in Los Angeles).' The boss was none other than Tetsuya Mizuguchi, who was just starting his new division at Sega. He and Kazdal hit it off, and Mizuguchi invited Kazdal to come join him in Tokyo. 'It was a dream come true,' he says. The only foreigner on a team of about 50, Kazdal would work on Rez, the pioneering title that introduced Mizuguchi's signature design of interactive synesthesia. 'Mizuguchi was the coolest boss,' Kazdal says. 'I had a fantastic time working with him on these experimental projects — really offbeat, weird, original, creative stuff. We were stabbing in the dark, but that ethos of not being afraid to try something really different has stuck with me.' Rez was a critical success but a financial failure. The team was eventually absorbed into the team working on Sega's more successful Sonic franchise, which signaled to Kazdal that it was time to move on. 'I wanted to work on my own terms, so I decided to start my own company,' he says, and Kyoto was the obvious choice due to the established indie scene. 'It ended up being the perfect fit.' Founded in 2009, Kazdal's studio, 17-Bit, is an homage to the SNES era. '17-bit means taking the 16-bit ethos (a reference to the SNES' microprocessor) and then adding one more bit of modern technology and polish, as if those classic genres continued to exist on a different timeline.' 17-Bit is currently working on an unannounced action game. 'Hopefully we have something to show at BitSummit this year,' says Kazdal. 'It has really classic inspirations, but it's also very modern.' The newcomer A new arrival on the Kyoto scene is British designer Liam Edwards, who got started at the least-indie place imaginable. 'My first job in games was at Rockstar Games, working on Grand Theft Auto 5,' Edwards, 34, says. 'Eventually I got tired of being a tiny cog in a huge machine and decided to do something crazy and move to Japan.' Liam Edwards (right) runs DenkiWorks with Taku Arioka and Jan de Graaf. | COURTESY OF LIAM EDWARDS After talking to several developers (including Kazdal) via his role as host of Final Games, a gaming podcast, Edwards was inspired to start developing his own games. A fateful meeting with Cuthbert at an event during Tokyo Game Show in 2017 resulted in a job offer at Q-Games. When one of his homebrewed games went viral, the folks at Chuhai Labs offered Edwards the chance to put together a team to develop it into a full game. The result was the critically acclaimed Cursed to Golf, released in August 2022. The success gave him the confidence to open his own studio. 'A lot of people just want to work in games, and I get that, but I'm not interested in making any game,' Edwards says. 'I don't want to work on (games like) Grand Theft Auto, so I had to create an avenue to make the things I think are meaningful.' In 2022, he cofounded DenkiWorks with Taku Arioka and Jan de Graaf, former teammates at Q-Games. 'We had such a good time working together that we decided we should try our hand at making a studio,' says Edwards. DenkiWords is currently working on its debut title: Tanuki: Pon's Summer, a game 'about a little tanuki that cycles around delivering the post in the Japanese countryside to earn money to rebuild a shrine in time for a matsuri (festival).' 'The catch being he's a BMX wiz so he can do some Tony Hawk tricks while he's at it,' adds Edwards. When asked if Edwards sees himself as a part of Japan's gaming dev landscape, he shies away from a cut-and-dry answer. 'We're all making indie games in Japan, but we're not really part of the Japanese games industry,' he says. 'We're part of the global indie scene but we're based in Japan, and that's what makes us unique. We're a part of the West as much as we're a part of Japan.' In his view, this separates Kyoto's foreign developers from the actual Japanese indie scene, which Edwards describes as 'solo creators or two-people teams who share their games at small events.' 'They're not making a living out of it, they're just doing it because they love making games. So there's a disconnect there (with what we're doing).' If Edwards feels disjointed from the indie scene elsewhere in Japan, his devotion to Kyoto itself more than makes up for it. 'If you're gonna make indies in Japan, you're gonna make them in Kyoto,' he says. 'Of course, we're all in the shadow of Nintendo, but we're also here because of Nintendo.'
