Shigeru Miyamoto, one of the key figures behind monumental Nintendo franchises like The Legend of Zelda and Super Mario, recently received recognition from the government of Japan typically reserved for artists, athletes, and Nobel Prize winners. The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology declared Miyamoto a recipient of the 2026 Order of Culture award — and the resulting press conference for the accolade is a remarkable reflection of a gaming legend.
After receiving the medal, Miyamoto opened the floor for questions from the press. The master game designer spoke about a wide range of topics, from how the countryside influenced his artistry to how Nintendo maintains a sense of originality while employing a workforce of 10,000 people. Miyamoto's answers are worth a read in full, but one tidbit that stands out is his discussion of a hot-button topic in the world of video games: AI. Right now, the industry is in the middle of a massive AI upheaval that has arguably democratized the creation of video games — and flooded the internet with AI slop.
For Miyamoto, the spiritual creative turmoil isn't entirely new. Here's Miyamoto:
To tell you a little about the past, computers came out around the time of our generation, and tools evolved rapidly, from typewriters to word processors. For example, designers learn a technique called "lettering," which involves writing beautiful text on posters, at school. In the past, if you could do that, you could be called a designer.
Even just translating popular overseas designs into Japanese and laying them out was enough to be called a designer. However, as computers and word processors evolved, we could copy and paste text from anywhere, import images from anywhere, and even have them write neatly. It was only when these tools took over the technical aspects that a person's individual design ability, such as a sense of layout, began to come to the forefront.
As a result, even if the husband was a designer and the wife did the housework, it often turned out that "the wife actually had superior design abilities." That's what it means for tools to change.
The Nintendo legend skewers AI
Miyamoto believes AI's ability to help people understand the joy and power of creation as a good thing. In the press conference, the luminary spent a lot of time talking about how he's spent his entire life trying to lower barriers for people to both play and develop games without being a gamer or game designer.
Making art with AI is different, of course. AI creators, by and large, use their digital tools to quickly create an overarching structure.
This allows AI users to focus on filling in the gaps, and that process is often framed by such creators as the true work.
Miyamoto said, "This is the tricky part; the work itself is enjoyable. When you're working, you get a tremendous sense of satisfaction from 'creating' something. But the scary thing is that you become so satisfied with the work that you mistakenly think, 'I've made something pretty good.'"
One could compare this process to what happened in the world of design once everyone was capable of using computers to copy and paste concepts without needing to truly learn how to make them. Miyamoto mused, "There have probably been designs in the past that were created simply by copying and pasting. But those don't last forever, do they?"
The creator of Mario said he has no idea what changes AI will bring in the future, but he is still hopeful that human intention will remain at the heart of creativity.
"I think there is still plenty we can do," Miyamoto declared.