Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto Says Playing Pokemon Go "Is A Dream Come True"

Nintendo's recent 81st annual general meeting of shareholders offered an opportunity for those present to ask questions of some of Nintendo's top leadership, including the most important question of all--what are your favorite games?

For legendary Nintendo game designer Shigeru Miyamoto, the answer was definitively Pokemon Go. Other answers weren't entirely surprising, with most of the Nintendo executives present, including President Shuntaro Furukawa, responding with some variation of old Nintendo games, with a few newer titles, like Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit or the recent rerelease of the Famicom Detective Club games on Switch, also getting shoutouts.

Miyamoto's full answer was a little different from most of Nintendo's other executives. For starters, he begins with a bit of a humble brag by saying he mostly sticks to playing games he designed himself, and since he doesn't play many other games he isn't influenced much by games from other companies. He does go on, however, to say Pac-Man and Tetris proved to be influences early on in his game development career.

From there, Miyamoto uses the rest of his answer to sing the praises of Niantic's mobile game.

"I'm currently hooked on Pokemon Go," Miyamoto says. "This game, which I'm playing with my wife, is a dream come true of playing a game with my whole family. I've been enjoying Pokemon Go with my wife and neighborhood friends for some two years now. The average person playing Pokemon Go in Japan is probably around 60 years old (laughs)."

Pokemon Go first released in 2016, and quickly proceeded to take the world by storm. For a few weeks it seemed like everyone walking down the street looking at their phone was actually trying to catch Pokemon. Miyamoto's answer seems to imply he only recently got into the game in a big way, or at least only started playing it with his friends and neighbors in recent years.

The game is still quite popular and receives regular updates and events, like the recent Bidoof Day event that saw the "plump mouse" Pokemon featured across various Pokemon games and social media accounts. Niantic will soon be making changes to Pokemon Go's Raid Battles, which will include trainer achievements for participating as well as an art and UI refresh for the encounters. The game's annual Pokemon Go Fest is slated to take place July 17-18.