Shigeru Miyamoto told investors Nintendo wants to bring new characters to the world through movies, videos, and other channels, signaling a broader entertainment strategy beyond Mario and Zelda.
Miyamoto points Nintendo’s next characters beyond the console
Shigeru Miyamoto says Nintendo wants to bring “new characters” to audiences through movies, videos, and other non-game channels, not only through future games. The comment came in Nintendo’s recently published English translation of its investor Q&A, where the company discussed its strategy of expanding the number of people who have access to Nintendo IP.
That is the concrete signal for players: Nintendo is not treating movies, parks, mobile apps, merchandise, and videos as side quests anymore. In the Switch 2 generation, president Shuntaro Furukawa said the company’s basic policy on expanding Nintendo IP “will not change,” while Miyamoto said Nintendo will focus even more on this area going forward.
What Miyamoto actually said
In response to an investor question about movies, theme parks, and non-gaming products, Miyamoto said he had discussed Nintendo’s future for more than 15 years with former president Satoru Iwata. He said he was initially cautious about smart devices and using game characters outside games because poor or restrictive use of those characters could create “unwanted limitations” when making games.
Miyamoto said his view shifted during Wii development. Nintendo’s dedicated game platforms could only reach so many people, he said, while smartphones, movie theaters, YouTube, and other channels could reach a much larger audience. He also framed Nintendo hardware purchases around desire for specific games and characters, saying people buy a Nintendo platform because they want to play a particular game, Super Mario, or The Legend of Zelda.
The key line from the official Q&A is that Nintendo wants to expand these initiatives and bring “not only Super Mario and The Legend of Zelda, but also new characters, to the world,” including through “movies and videos.” Nintendo Life reported the comments from the translated Q&A, and My Nintendo News noted that it remains unclear whether “new characters” means entirely new IP or characters outside Mario and Zelda.
Why this matters after Nintendo’s movie push
The timing makes the statement more important than a normal investor-room answer. Nintendo has already shown, through its recent entertainment strategy, that characters can work as more than avatars on a cartridge or download screen. The Mario movie era turned the company’s mascot strategy into a broader stage play: cinema first brings in families, theme parks keep the world physically present, merchandise keeps the icon visible, and games remain the place where players take control.
Miyamoto’s comments suggest Nintendo wants that loop to start earlier for future characters. Instead of a character becoming famous in a game and later being adapted, Nintendo may be thinking about characters as worlds that can move across formats from the beginning. For action-adventure players, that matters because character identity shapes everything: level rhythm, enemy design, traversal, music cues, visual readability, and the kind of set pieces Nintendo can build around a hero.
Confirmed strategy, not a new game announcement
There is no announced release date, platform, price, cast, studio, or title attached to Miyamoto’s “new characters” comment. Nintendo has not announced a specific new movie based on a new character in the quoted material, nor has it announced a new game tied to this remark.
What is confirmed is the strategy. Furukawa said Nintendo’s policy of broadening access to its IP will continue in the Switch 2 generation. Miyamoto said IP-related initiatives now have a high profit margin and have grown as a business, while also playing a major role in expanding Nintendo globally. He also pointed to Pikmin Bloom as one example of an initiative that has worked, particularly in Asian regions such as South Korea and Taiwan, describing these efforts as ways to “sow seeds around the world.”
What players should do with this information
Players should read this as a long-term direction, not a buying cue. Do not expect a new character reveal, film trailer, or Switch 2 software announcement solely because of this Q&A. Nintendo is telling investors how it wants its characters to travel, not giving players a release calendar.
The useful takeaway is that Nintendo characters outside games are now central to the company’s planning. If the next wave of Nintendo movies characters includes fresh faces, those characters may arrive with a wider ecosystem already in mind. The risk is that cross-media planning can flatten a character into a logo. The opportunity is that Nintendo’s best work happens when mechanics, movement, personality, and world design lock together. Miyamoto’s own caution about outside use limiting game creation shows Nintendo understands that tension.
For now, the clean read from this Shigeru Miyamoto interview-style investor response is simple: Nintendo wants future characters to be discoverable wherever audiences are, but the company still sees games as the reason those characters matter.