Miyamoto Says Nintendo Games Alone Can't Reach Everyone, Driving Media Push

With The Super Mario Galaxy Movie opening worldwide tomorrow, Shigeru Miyamoto gave a candid answer to a question Nintendo rarely addresses publicly: games have a ceiling.

"As we approach Mario and developing Mario games, I start to feel like there's only so many people that we can reach through Nintendo's systems and consoles," Miyamoto said in a Polygon interview alongside Illumination CEO Chris Meledandri, conducted ahead of the April 3 release. "And so now with things like digital streaming and the expanse and the reach of what the technology allows now, I feel like that's a great way to get Mario involved too, and really be able to evolve alongside with digital media."

The admission carries unusual weight coming from the designer who created Mario, Donkey Kong, The Legend of Zelda, and Pikmin. It also offers the clearest explanation yet for why Nintendo has been systematically expanding beyond the hardware install base that defined its first four decades.

The expansion is already delivering results that dwarf typical gaming milestones. The Super Mario Bros. Movie, the first Nintendo-Illumination collaboration, grossed approximately $1.3 billion globally after its 2023 release, including a $146.4 million domestic opening weekend that set a record for video game adaptations at the time. Nintendo and Illumination began discussing the partnership around 2016, through their shared work on Super Nintendo World with Universal Parks & Resorts, with a formal production announcement following in January 2018.

The Galaxy Movie brings back the full voice cast: Chris Pratt as Mario, Anya Taylor-Joy as Princess Peach, Charlie Day as Luigi, Jack Black as Bowser, Keegan-Michael Key as Toad, and Kevin Michael Richardson as Kamek. Glen Powell joins as Fox McCloud from the Star Fox franchise, with Brian Tyler returning to compose and Illumination Studios Paris handling animation.

Powell's casting immediately touched off speculation about a Super Smash Bros.-style crossover. Miyamoto and Meledandri both dismissed that idea in the same interview. Miyamoto said he does not expect "a situation where all Nintendo characters will be joining," describing cameos like Powell's as simply there to "add a little spice." Meledandri confirmed that individual film projects, not a shared universe, remain the priority.

Miyamoto went further on what the film strategy means for Nintendo's future audience. He acknowledged that a new generation will relate to the movie version of Mario before they ever pick up a controller, a significant philosophical pivot for a company whose identity was built entirely on interactive entertainment. In a separate IGN interview at the opening of Universal's Epic Universe theme park in Orlando, where Super Nintendo World is housed, Miyamoto described Nintendo as being "like a talent agency" with "a lot of talented characters" available to deploy. He also reaffirmed his standing personal mission to place Pikmin in as many Nintendo products as possible.

The pipeline now extends well beyond Mario. A live-action Legend of Zelda film and an animated Donkey Kong movie are both in development, and Nintendo has been releasing animated shorts for Mario and Pikmin on digital streaming platforms.

All of it represents a hard reversal from the philosophy that followed the catastrophic 1993 live-action Super Mario Bros. film, which drove Nintendo to wall off its IP from Hollywood for nearly 20 years. That reversal now has a $1.3 billion proof of concept behind it, and a second film opening tomorrow.