Wired Magazine has posted an interview with Shigeru Miyamoto. Check out the full interview here. An excerpt is below:
Wired News: The Japanese games industry is in trouble, as sales keep dropping. What is Nintendo doing to get things going again?
Shigeru Miyamoto: I don't really think it's a Japanese problem. I think it's an industrywide and worldwide issue. In fact, I'm surprised how well the U.S. has held up; I think the U.S. is more the exception rather than the rule.
What's happening with video games is the same thing that happens with anything new and interesting. At the beginning, everybody wants to see what it is. They gather around and check it out. But gradually, people start to lose interest.
The people who don't lose interest become more and more involved. And the medium starts to be influenced by only those people. It becomes something exclusive to the people who've stuck with it for a long time. And when the people who were interested in it at first look back at it, it's no longer the thing that interested them.
So obviously, it's very important for us to create brand new things that bring back those people. But it's just as important to create the kind of games that current gamers know they like.