Miyamoto explains Nintendo's success: fun over specs, not chasing trends

In a new interview with Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu, Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto laid out the philosophy that keeps the company standing while the rest of the industry stumbles through layoffs, studio closures, and expensive flops. His core argument is simple: Nintendo doesn't ask what's popular right now — it builds what it believes is genuinely fun to play.

Miyamoto offered two quotes that cut to the heart of Nintendo's approach. "The reason why Nintendo is particularly supported globally is that we don't start by asking 'what's popular now?'" he said. "But rather we've consistently continued to create what we consider 'fun to play.'" On the money side, he was equally direct: "If you only think about whether something will make money quickly when you create it, you can't create anything unique or with potential." He also addressed hardware, arguing that consumers have shifted away from chasing specs: "I think that customers are no longer just looking for specs" — pointing to smartphones as proof that convenience and accessibility now matter more than raw processing power. Nintendo's advantage, he says, is delivering gameplay only it can create, with the responsiveness and freedom that comes from controlling a single hardware architecture.

The contrast with Sony and Microsoft is hard to ignore. Sony spent heavily chasing live-service dominance — acquiring Bungie, funding Concord, and targeting ten live-service titles by 2026 — and got very little to show for it beyond Helldivers 2. Nintendo went the opposite direction: Splatoon, its closest thing to a live-service game, was recently reimagined as a single-player experience, Splatoon Raiders, which is currently sitting in the top ten highest user-rated games on Metacritic. The Switch's hybrid design — handheld and home console in one — proved that convenience beats horsepower for a huge slice of the market, and Switch 2 sales suggest that formula still holds. Meanwhile, the games circling the top of engagement charts — Fortnite, Roblox, Five Nights at Freddy's — all run on phones, not cutting-edge hardware.

Miyamoto also noted that reducing unnecessary development work is a priority for Nintendo's efficiency, a philosophy that looks increasingly smart as AAA budgets spiral and publishers struggle to recoup costs. With hardware and software prices rising across the industry and more players being priced out of premium experiences, Nintendo's lean, fun-first approach leaves it well positioned — much as it was the last time the industry hit a wall.