I can think of few greater compliments towards a game or its designers than to be praised by one of modern gaming’s greatest legends. Visionary Nintendo designer Shigeru Miyamoto, the mastermind behind Mario and The Legend of Zelda, had nothing but praise for one of the most iconic mobile games ever – Angry Birds.
In an interview with Hookshot (via MacStories), Miyamoto offered his own thumbs up to Angry Birds, stating that “There aren’t many games that I’ve played recently that have been truly convincing to me,” and stating that he very much enjoys the game, “especially the way in which it combines traditional and new game elements in exciting ways.”
Miyamoto continued, sharing his admiration of the precision and depth of the game’s physics and controls, as well as its simplicity, and even went so far as to say that he wished he’d thought of the game first!
Angry Birds is a very simple idea but it’s one of those games that I immediately appreciated when I first started playing, before wishing that I had been the one to come up with the idea first.
That’s a serious compliment to Rovio and Angry Bords, especially coming from one of the most legendary and influential game designers of all time! Unfortunately, despite Miyamoto’s enthusiasm, it’s unlikely that Nintendo will enter the smartphone gaming market any time soon – the company has repeatedly dismissed and expressed distain for the App Store, and smartphones in general.
Perhaps in time Nintendo will soften their stance and begin focusing their attention on the rising smartphone and tablet gaming market. Unfortunately, it will probably take serious failure in the portable gaming hardware market to reach that point.
