Nintendo set to cash in as Sony's game plan crumbles

The delay of the PlayStation 3 launch may be great for its rival, but Shigeru Miyamoto is trying not to admit it, writes Nick Mathiason

Feted as the Steven Spielberg of video games, Shigeru Miyamoto is regarded by computer-game aficionados as just about the most important figure in what is a £20bn industry.

As creator of Donkey Kong, Super Mario and the Legend of Zelda - among the biggest-selling games of all time, Miyamoto is revered by gamers. Evidence? More than 3,000 normally hard-bitten New Yorkers chanted his name at a store opening two years ago. A web chat this week hosted in London received a staggering 15,000 questions from gamers.

Nintendo's senior managing director and general manager of the entertainment analysis and development division - to give him his full title - was in Europe last week to be knighted by President Chirac for his contribution to culture. The unfeasibly young-looking 54-year-old stopped briefly in London to talk exclusively to The Observer.

While he was in the capital, news broke that Japanese rival Sony had postponed the launch of its long awaited follow-up to PlayStation 2, the world's best-selling games console. PlayStation 3 was supposed to hit the shops next month, but computer game fans will now have to wait until November.

The markets sent Sony shares down 1.8 per cent, and the delay means it will go head-to-head with Nintendo, which will launch its new console, Revolution, at the same time. It will also allow Microsoft a whole year to bed down its XBox 360 and almost certainly drop prices against the twin launches.

But if Miyamoto is worried about the impending clash of the next-generation consoles, he isn't showing it.

'For Nintendo we don't care because what we're trying to do is different from Sony,' he said, with the aid of an interpreter, from the comfort of the Charlotte Street Hotel in London's West End. 'For the consumer it might be some issue if Nintendo Revolution and Sony are launched at the same time. They might have to think about the money they can spend. But the announcement was not surprising because everyone in this industry knew for a very long time that Sony was never going to be able to do a spring launch for PS3. If there was a surprise, it's that Sony waited so long to make the announcement.'

Maybe it is Sony that should do the worrying. Morale at the firm has plunged, and some doubt whether Sir Howard Stringer, the Welshman charged with turning the firm around, will be able to pull it off.

Sony is slashing 10,000 jobs, or 7 per cent of its workforce. Once the world's most resonant electronic brand, it allowed Apple to outmanoeuvre it in the MP3 market, and then it let Korean rivals LG and Samsung dominate the masselling widescreen TV stakes.

The PlayStation console is the one area where it has a commanding position. But problems integrating its new high-definition Blu-ray DVD technology into its consoles have caused problems.

Miyamoto, though, is more concerned with his own product launch, which he proudly boasts will 'drastically change' the way people approach video games.

'The whole way of how to approach television sets by utilising games is going to drastically change. Regardless of whatever contents, we provide, the way you react will be different.'

Some analysts say that Microsoft's move into games will eventually sideline Nintendo, and that the Seattle-based goliath could even buy the firm from Kyoto one day.

The idea gets short shrift from Miyamoto. 'We are two separate companies with completely different cultures. That's the last question we expected!'

There appears to be no love lost between the two firms. 'Nintendo is always thinking of the customer. What is the interesting, unique entertainment we can create for the mass audience. I don't think that concept is shared by Microsoft when they're trying to create their online (game) business.'

Stuart Dinsey, publisher of games industry trade bible MCV, attributes Miyamoto and Nintendo's success to appealing beyond gaming's traditional male 18-35 demographic.

'Miyamoto has been responsible for the design and direction of a multitude of best-selling products for 20 years,' he says. 'He remains the most revered creative talent in the global gaming business. He really believes in fun and play. That's an incredibly easy thing to say, but Nintendo is going all out to tempt different users.'

For Miyamoto, the formula is easy. 'Nintendo asks those who do not play games why they don't. The answer is rather obvious: they are too complicated or not something for me.' That's why the firm has pioneered moves into brain games aimed at the older market and is trying to get more women playing.

The key for Miyamoto is focusing on creativity - coming up with games and concepts that entertain first and foremost. 'What we are trying to do is unprecedented, and whenever you're thinking no person has ever done it before, that's great fun and no pressure. Some people may need to think of budget versus revenue, but I never think in such a fashion. That's probably why I don't think in terms of pressure.'

It certainly looks to be the case. Dressed in jeans and a Nintendo T-shirt; Miyamoto is relaxed and prone to occasional bouts of wackiness. The only problem he admits to is 'the challenge put on me to absorb something unknown to me'.

There was no television for Miyamoto to goggle at during his childhood in 1950s Japan. It enabled him to concentrate on exploring the countryside that surrounded him, feeding his sense of wonder. Won't all that be lost to children today, and aren't the games he produces helping to suppress their creativity?

'When I was younger, I was surrounded by nature but I think it was a narrow world that we could explore. Young people nowadays can have close communication and contact with the whole world. And it depends on how they deal with this environment. Today's environment may be more suited for those to eager to absorb whatever information is available. Maybe today's situation is much better than when I was a child.'

The future, he says, will see games blurring further the boundaries between computers, televisions, phones, consoles and satellites.

But as technology becomes more accessible, 'game creators are going to face huge responsibilities, because what's important is who is going to make the game, what kind of person he or she is, and what's the message'.

With Miyamoto, at least there's the comfort that the man behind the game and message seems concerned primarily with good old-fashioned entertainment which, if nothing else, is future-proof.