Former Nintendo of America marketing leads Kit Ellis and Krysta Yang have recounted yet another tale of Shigeru Miyamoto's unconventional testing methods.
Creator of Mario, Zelda, Donkey Kong, and (most importantly) Pikmin, Miyamoto hasn't been too down in the trenches with game development for some time now, typically taking on a supervisor role and overseeing the development of certain franchises (with 2015's Super Mario Maker being the last console game he had an "original concept" credit on). However, even though he's been busy producing films and working on the Super Nintendo World theme parks, Miyamoto is still present and eager to try out games. Albeit, a little differently than most would try out a game for the first time.
Recently, Donkey Kong Bananza producer Kenta Motokura recalled showing the game to Miyamoto, who "just stuck to one point, smashing and digging around a lot." Previously, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild director Hidemaro Fujibayashi recalled that the first time he played that game "he spent about an hour just climbing trees."
Former Nintendo of America marketing leads Ellis and Yang – respectively the ex-director of social media marketing and original content, and ex-senior manager of creator relations and original content – reveal in a Twitter post that they too have a good story of Miyamoto playing a game in a funny way. Ellis recalls a time he was working with a demo for New Super Mario Bros. Wii. "We had kind of a quiet moment, and I saw Mr. Miyamoto playing this game." Ellis adds that it was one of the game's ice stages, and Miyamoto was donning that game's new Penguin suit power-up.
"He was just doing that move where you slide on the ice, but that's all he was doing," Ellis adds. He describes that Miyamoto "was very intently watching it and doing the slide, then stopping, then doing it again."
Shigeru Miyamoto simply sees the world differently than the rest of us pic.twitter.com/xiMs0EuLvhAugust 16, 2025
Ellis and Yang then speculate as to what he was actually doing, if he was perhaps making a mental note for the sake of feedback. Ellis says "he just sees things differently," with Yang calling Miyamoto "a genius" and saying that "he definitely experiences games in a much different way."
