Miyamoto Keeps Games at His House So Grandkids Have to Visit

A Very Specific Grandpa Strategy

Shigeru Miyamoto has spent roughly five decades shaping how millions of people play games. These days, though, his relationship with the medium has shifted to something quieter and, honestly, a lot sweeter.

In a rare in-depth interview with Famitsu last week, the 73-year-old Nintendo legend opened up about his current gaming habits. As reported by Nintendo Life, which translated the conversation via Google, Miyamoto admitted he does not play much on his own anymore. But he has figured out a workaround with a characteristically clever twist.

“In my case, my grandchildren… if they have games at their own house, they play with them too much, so I keep them at my house and tell them, ‘Come to Grandpa’s house when you want to play,’” he told Famitsu.

That is, in a word, a power move. Store the games at your place, guarantee regular visits. The man who gave us spatial puzzle design in Donkey Kong has applied the same logic to family scheduling.

Boss Rush, Grandpa Edition

Miyamoto did not just share the logistical side of things. He also mentioned that his skills are apparently still intact, at least relative to his audience.

“My young grandchildren can’t clear it yet, so they’re happy when I play with them and help them clear it,” he continued, according to Nintendo Life’s coverage. “They say the boss in Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker is scary, so I play that part for them.”

Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, originally a Wii U release that found a larger audience on Switch, is a gentle, inventive puzzle platformer about a headlamp-wearing mushroom person navigating rotating dioramas. It is, by most standards, a very chill game. But bosses are bosses, and apparently even Toadette’s enemies carry some weight with the younger set. Grandpa stepping in to handle the scary part is exactly the kind of detail that makes you want to set the controller down for a minute and just feel something.

Still Very Much in the Building

None of this means Miyamoto has retreated from Nintendo in any meaningful sense. The Famitsu interview, covered in parts by Nintendo Life, also touched on his thoughts about remakes and the pipeline between the studio’s films and its games. He served as producer on both animated Mario movies and will take the same role on the upcoming live-action Legend of Zelda film. He has also been a central figure in Nintendo’s real-world expansions, including its theme parks and the Nintendo Museum.

The man is not exactly sitting still. He just has better things to do with his evenings than grind through Splatoon Raiders or Pokopia solo, according to Nintendo Life’s reading of the interview.

There is something almost poetic about it. Miyamoto spent decades designing experiences meant to bring people together around a screen, creating the cooperative spirit that made two-player modes feel essential, building worlds that families could share. Now the framework he helped build has circled back to him in the most personal form possible: a grandkid who needs help past a scary boss, and a grandfather who keeps the cartridges at his house just to make sure they show up.

The Famitsu interview covered a lot of ground, but this particular corner of it is the one worth sitting with.