Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto hopes he'll stay healthy until the series' 50th anniversary in 2035 and is looking forward to seeing how the current team takes on the challenge of improving on Odyssey

(Image credit: Nintendo)

Mario, Donkey Kong, Pikmin, and Zelda creator Shigeru Miyamoto has said he hopes he can keep healthy until Mario's upcoming 50th anniversary in 2035.

Speaking to Japanese magazine Casa Brutus (which has been acquired and machine translated by VGC) the Nintendo icon – who also mentioned he doesn't really take part in the development of Mario games anymore – spoke about the future of the series.

While Miyamoto mentions he has "teammates who help maintain the world of Mario" like Takashi Tezuka and Yoshiaki Koizumi within Nintendo, Miyamoto notes that due to many passionate people outside our company (likely referring to the members of Illumination and Universal's theme park division), Mario has expanded into theme parks and movies. The legendary developer adds that he's "really looking forward to how things will develop from here."

While it's easy to guess that there is a new mainline Mario game in development probably at all times within Nintendo, Miyamoto did acknowledge it somewhat. He says that he believes that with Super Mario Odyssey the team had done just about everything they could on the Switch, adding, "whenever a new console came out, we always released a new Mario game, so I do wonder how the current team will take on that challenge." And while Donkey Kong Bananza was developed by the 3D Mario team and was a fantastic follow-up to Odyssey from both a game and tech standpoint, it's nice to know more Mario is on the way.

Miyamoto added that he just hopes " to stay healthy until Mario’s 50th anniversary." While Mario first appeared in 1981's Donkey Kong and had his debut game with 1983's Mario Bros., Nintendo keeps track of the anniversary of Super Mario Bros., which had its 40th this year.

Nintendo icon Shigeru Miyamoto says the Mario series will still be around for its 100th anniversary "as long as we don’t forget" what the platformer is all about – "running and jumping"