If you subscribe to Nintendo Power, the latest issue should be arriving at your house very soon -- Aeropause has the scoop on some details on Nintendo's upcoming lineup from the issue. Most important to folks reading this text is likely what Miyamoto had to say regarding the new Legend of Zelda game, announced back at E3: "I don't think it's going to be that radically different." But, what about the theory of the girl being the Master Sword? Surely that is radically different!

In typical Nintendo fashion, that's all Miyamoto had to say. He left us hanging to speculate, and we're sure most will be able to turn this appetizer of a quote into a five-course meal.

[Via Videogamer]

Luminary Shigeru Miyamoto hasn't lost his shimmer in the eyes of game developers, with a recent industry poll finding the Nintendo icon to be without equal. The survey, commissioned by organizers of next month's Develop Conference, asked 9,000 devs to name their game development hero, with nearly a third of respondents pointing to Miyamoto as the man with the plan.

The popularity contest also named id Software's John Carmack as the next most idealized developer, followed by Maxis and now Stupid Fun Club brainpan Will Wright. The top ten list of industry highlights was rounded out by Braid dev Jonathan Blow, who's likely too busy rewinding time (to see if he can somehow land higher on the ballot) to care.

If there was one driving theme behind this year's E3, it was that motion controls are too cool for school. However, even with both Microsoft and Sony jumping onto the bandwagon with their own gesture-based antics, Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto tells the BBC that he's "not worried at all" about being left behind.

In fact, the brain trust says that Nintendo's "very flattered" by the competition. Still, Miyamoto barbed his comments, stating that, based on what he's seen so far, neither competitor's motion controllers "have the type of depth that we're able to provide with Wii Motion Plus." Sony. Microsoft. You hear that hitting the floor? That's the gauntlet.

[Via 1UP]

Shigeru Miyamoto didn't appear at Nintendo's big E3 conference, but he did appear at what Nintendo called a "developer event" later that evening, in a "very relaxed mood" from his morning off. This discussion/Q&A event was the location of last year's Pikmin 3 reveal, and this year Miyamoto came prepared to surprise everyone again at the end, with art from the next Zelda game.

"To be honest with you, I really wanted, at this E3, to announce a Zelda game for Wii," he said. "But, we've already shown you a Zelda on Wii, and rather than try to think of something to bring here to show you, we really wanted to focus on actual game development.

"However, I didn't want to come empty-handed, so I did bring the main illustration for the next Zelda title."

Shigeru Miyamoto still thinks about games that aren't about exercise, as evidenced by this patent for an unused DS RPG discovered by Siliconera. The concept is simple, but sounds like a lot of fun: it's your basic RPG with random battles, but the combat is all touch-controlled.

In this patented game design, monsters move around on the screen, and you poke them with the stylus to cause damage. Jab a weak point for massive damage (of course), and less damage results from missing or hitting more armored areas.

There's only one aspect of this design that confuses us: why it isn't a game yet. We'd love to see Miyamoto's take on the classic turn-based RPG.

Canada's ELAN Awards, a ceremony celebrating achievements in animation and video games, has announced that it will add another trophy to Shigeru Miyamoto's collection. The Nintendo producer, "considered by his peers to be the greatest video game designer in the world," will be inducted into the organization's "Video Game Hall of Fame." One notable peer: last year's award winner, Microsoft's Don Mattrick.

Voting for the honorary award, along with the ceremony's other honorary awards in the fields of animation and visual effects, was held online, hosted by IGN. The awards will be handed out on April 25 in Vancouver at an event hosted by Tom "Spongebob Squarepants" Kenny.

Sometimes, one might assume that super-genius game developers don't think the way that you do, but it's just not so! Take, for instance, Shigeru Miyamoto, who you might know for his work on pure undiluted joy. He recently told Japanese mag Famitsu that several aspects of the way Nintendo operated during the N64 and GameCube years made him "very sad." Hey, Shiggy, us too!

Of course, we probably have slightly different reasoning. Miyamoto complained about the company trying to follow its competitors during that era, saying, "I was endlessly fascinated with 3D worlds, but what with all the issues I had to tinker with in terms of rendering and processing speed, it got to the point where I didn't know who was making the games any longer." We would have more simply said that "a lot of games for those systems were very, very bad," but it's nice to know the big guy gets where we're coming from.

Shigeru Miyamoto and Spore have been recognized by The Jim Henson Company as part of their annual "Jim Henson Honors" awards. The legendary game designer was bestowed the Celebration Honor, which goes to an "individual, organization or product that makes the world a better place by inspiring people to celebrate life." Mario, Donkey, Wii ... yeah, you know the drill.

As for Spore, it took home the Technology Honor, probably because it allowed everyone to create their favorite Star Wars characters or giant penis monsters. The other not so game-related awards went to artist Shepard Falrey (Creativity Honor) and the Center for Puppetry Arts Distance Learning Center (Community Honor).

Congratulations to everyone. We can't think of a better way to celebrate than with the video after the break.

When Swedish eBayer Mikael was lucky enough to win a Shigeru Miyamoto-autographed DS at E3 2005, he did the only sensible thing: he sealed it away from the harmful effects of light and dust forever. Or at least, until now.

This pristine, fingerprint-free Pearl White model is currently on eBay, where it lies at the $760 mark with over a week to go. Is it worth that? For something you're likely not going to use, probably not, but this is easily one of the nicest autographed DSes we've seen. The combination of gold on white reeks of class, and Miyamoto's famous signature is, as usual, fun and playful. The fact that it's a Phat only increases its appeal to us.

See also: A very special deal on a Miyamoto-signed DS.

[Via Kotaku]

We're basically too dense to understand all the details, but a patent popped up for an in-game system that seems designed to provide hint movies on demand for puzzles, and also to play games for the player to a certain extent, on a time delay. The idea is clearly to let people with less experience, skill, or time enjoy longer games, without the actual difficulty having to take a hit.

But what do you think? Does it ruin the game to give you the option to make it easier? Does the game become de facto nerfed due to a failure of self-control? Or do you feel some other justification for shutting the extremely casual out of something like Zelda? We're sure some of you will. Some of you, on the other hand, may welcome such bridging efforts.

While the language used in patents is miles above our heads, we feel obligated to try to report on it, because it's apparently Miyamoto's design, and it's potentially quite cool. If we understand correctly, Miyamoto has invented a system that allows players of vastly different skill levels to play adventure games like Zelda, with the ability to skip or receive hints at difficult areas. In addition to accommodating various skill levels, this is designed for people who don't have a lot of time to play games. In effect, it makes the skill level almost totally configurable.

One component of the idea is low-resolution "hint movies" that display the solutions to difficult puzzles at the player's request. In addition, there is a "digest" component that allows players just to watch the game's storyline up to the point of their choosing -- but only after a specified time period (presumably to encourage people to play the game for some number of hours before watching). Finally, there's a DVD-style "chapter" ability that allows players to start the game from a previous "scene" -- rather like the save system in the new Pikmin remake.

All the associated images use a Zelda-like game "Legend of OO" to demonstrate the concepts, but that might just be a context used to help explain the concepts. But if you want to call "OMG NEXT ZELDA CONFIRMED WITH HINT SYSTEM THING," have fun! And if the USPTO image viewer doesn't work for you, check the linked NeoGAF thread for a few images.

[Via NeoGAF]

There's an entertaining interview with Shigeru Miyamoto over at the Official Nintendo Magazine site, in which Shiggy mostly comes across as a bumbling, endearing eccentric: apparently, he "strummed on an invisible guitar" for the entire interview, and voiced his suspicions that his cat is hiding games from the Miyamoto family. Ha.

Anyway, the article is mainly designed to promote Wii Music, but there is the odd very vague comment about the next Zelda. The opportunists at ONM couldn't resist mentioning the 'Z' word, but Miyamoto wasn't budging too much. "I'm really not sure when we'll be able to make a public announcement on that," he said, adding, "I can't even say if the next E3 will be the right opportunity to do so. But rest assured, our teams are working on new projects right now."

So the next Zelda ... might not be at E3 next year! If that's the case, we could reasonably expect to see something at Nintendo's fall conference(s). We'd at least like to have a peek next year -- having downloaded Ocarina of Time from the Virtual Console over the weekend (spoiler: it's still unfathomably brilliant), this blogger is aching for a new entry in the series.

Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto recently conducted a rather large Q&A with Edge, talking about all kinds of fascinating things. Actually, to tell you the truth, the man could talk about used Q-tips and we'd still find it fascinating. To call it a crush would be a severe understatement.

It's no secret that Wii Music hasn't been selling too well, but Miyamoto still has hope that the game will be a success. "I think a very large audience can enjoy Wii Music," Miyamoto said, adding that when Nintendo demoed the game, "many took to it." That can't really be said for the critics, however, who've not enjoyed the game overall.

"I really appreciate that the gaming media has a different view of anything as new as Wii Music today," Miyamoto stated. He said these scores help show "how different and unique Wii Music is" and that he has this "big ambition" for the game and "that it can eventually be something very influential so that it might be able to influence what music means in the world."

It's a pretty lengthy interview, so click here to read the whole thing. It's always nice to get a glimpse into Miyamoto's mind.

During a recent interview, Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto was quick to stick up for Nintendo's latest console and its graphical capabilities. It's one of the most criticized points of the console, as you're well aware, but Miyamoto thinks it's more than capable of getting the job done, stating that "When it comes to specific points such as generating high definition graphics we might appear to be rather relaxed and soft on graphics," further adding "the fact of the matter is that Wii is capable enough to cater to the needs of these hardcore gamers in terms of gameplay content as well as the graphical content, so I really don't want people to be concerned about that kind of attitude."

When asked about a new version of Wii with HD, Miyamoto wanted everyone to know that Nintendo isn't behind the times. "the fact of the matter is that technology is evolving all the time and in Japan, for example in the year 2010 all the analogue broadcast will be stopped and shifted into the digital broadcasting. So many things are taking place and we are working in terms of the changes of the technologies all the time." So, Nintendo isn't totally out of touch, and we could see a HD version of Wii release, but will we? "I'm afraid we cannot confirm what we are doing today."

Of course, Miyamoto.

[Via CVG]

He may not be intimately familiar with Ratchet and Whatshisface, but at least revered game designer Shigeru Miyamoto has had the pleasure of tumbling through dimensional shortcuts and outsmarting acerbic computers. In an interesting chat with MTV Multiplayer's Stephen Totilo, Miyamoto admits that he, like most rational human beings, thought Portal was "an amazing game."

Games that go without the "amazing" label? The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, which the Mario maker describes as "not a bad game, by any means," but one that felt "like there was something missing." And while Miyamoto submits that Super Mario Galaxy did "some things that were very new and were very unique," he ultimately feels that some elements seemed "somewhat conservative."

And it's at this point that we strongly advise you to open an umbrella or don a durable raincoat. When faced with the choice of vehemently defending two prominent Nintendo games or agreeing with the creator, fanboy brains tend to explode quite violently.