Legendary Nintendo game designer justifies company’s remakes ahead of new Zelda

Robert Zeglinski, For The WinSun, July 26, 2026 at 10:41 PM UTC

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At this point, Nintendo may be most synonymous with its generally outstanding craftsmanship, attention to detail, and a remarkable stable of first-party video games they've been making and iterating on for decades. You know, your garden-variety Mario, your Zelda, your Pokémon, and what have you.

Sometimes, what Nintendo does is remake a classic title from any one of its major games. The upcoming remake of Ocarina of Time in the Zelda franchise potentially coming this November, and the recently released remake of the original Star Fox on the Nintendo 64 probably comes to mind most of late. It's seemingly led to this perception that Nintendo might be joining the recent undercurrent of older video games getting remakes in earnest. On this level, remakes in the Resident Evil franchise, the new Halo: Campaign Evolved, and remakes of the modern Donkey Kong Country games come to mind.

Legendary Nintendo game designer and executive Shigeru Miyamoto doesn't deny the company is making a more concerted foray into remakes. In fact, he also strongly disagrees with any person's evaluation of video game remakes as a negative. In a new interview with Japanese publication Famitsu, Miyamoto said remakes serve to spotlight older games for younger gamers who might have missed the original version. With a remake, per Miyamoto, they get to play a classic everyone talks about but with modern game design perks and traits included.

It's a win-win. More from Famitsu:

“Some people might say there are a lot of remakes, but after five years, a lot of people have outgrown games and stop playing them," Miyamoto said. "Young people today don’t have the opportunity to play games from 10 years ago, so remaking them to be more playable and releasing them again is a good way to meet the demand.”

I'm not sure I see the logic with this assessment. Surely, there is a better way to get younger gamers to play the classics without devoting so many resources and time to making a full-fledged remake. Alas, Nintendo's track record at least sort of speaks for itself here in terms of delivering what is promised.

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Miyamoto continued with this train of thought, noting that the success of a video game remake can also open new opportunities in the future, a.k.a. sales figures from remakes help keep the relevant franchise going with entries that hopefully push the envelope with new gameplay design. OK, now this point I buy. It's probably invaluable to have a team working on a remake who then lets you feed that success back into a new game's direction.

It feels like a very healthy way to operate as a video game company. Here's more Miyamoto, per Famitsu:

“Letting people know the original games [the remakes] also leads to future developments [new games], so we’ve [Nintendo] been actively pursuing that recently.”

If anyone has earned the benefit of the doubt to express potential feather-ruffling opinions like this, it's definitely Miyamoto. With Ocarina of Time serving as Nintendo's next high-profile remake, we'll have to monitor the reception amongst the community and Nintendo's ensuing response to see Miyamoto's thought process in action.

What other Nintendo games is Shigeru Miyamoto responsible for creating?

You can also count Miyamoto as the architect of Donkey Kong, Pikmin, Star Fox, and F-Zero

This article originally appeared on For The Win: Legendary Nintendo game designer justifies company’s remakes ahead of new Zelda

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”