Miyamoto Retiring?

This guy doesn't look ready to retire.

A rollup of stories from IndustryGamers this week, as featured on Kotaku can be found here. There's been a lot going on, and perhaps the most interesting flap has been over an interview that Wired conducted with Nintendo's star designer Shigeru Miyamoto, where he talks about retiring. Of course Nintendo, no doubt worried about their stock price, rushed to say he's not really resigning. I think the truth probably is Miyamoto wants to shift his responsibilities some, and maybe not "retire" in the Western sense of the word (as in not work any more), but maybe change from overseeing development efforts to being more hands-on.

Somehow Nintendo would like to get Miyamoto to sprinkle his magic dust over every title they do, or at least make investors think that he does.

Although I think what is really important is to get a whole crop of designers who can do what Miyamoto does, or at least approximate it. If he could train up some developers, that would be hugely useful to Nintendo. I'm not sure if that;s even possible, though, but it's certainly worth a try.