Shigeru Miyamoto, senior managing director at Nintendo, last week spoke to investors and, in doing so, clarified his position within the company.
The interview came in the wake of Nintendo's announcement that they are expecting a sizeable loss for the full financial year.
In the interview, Miyamoto talked about giving his subordinates more freedom to develop their creative skills: "My giving directions may hold back my subordinates' independent and voluntary growth. Accordingly, sometimes I intentionally give them freedom. Of course, I do not let everyone go totally unchecked. I supervise whenever necessary."
He explained further: "The basic idea is, I'm reminding myself to exercise patience (so that I will not state my opinion nor get myself involved in their work.) I end up using less of my energy and, as a result, I am starting to have time that I can spend for myself."
Miyamoto also explained how his role now primarily involves looking at potential new projects: "I am spending more time than before on finding new ideas for new developments rather than focusing my energy on work in my teams in order to solidify the contents of (existing) franchise titles."
He then added: "I am acting with the understanding that one big hit title can change multiple phases of a situation in the entertainment business, and I feel that finding such one big hit is my basic job."
With little known IPs Mario, Zelda and Donkey Kong to his name already, giving Miyamoto the freedom to hunt out potential new projects might prove to be a masterstroke by Nintendo.