2026-08-12
The Greatest Product Managers, No. 10: Shigeru Miyamoto — He Handed Over Mario's Day-to-Day and Kept Exactly One Thing: He Plays the First 30 Minutes of Every Game Himself
At 72, Shigeru Miyamoto is Nintendo's Executive Fellow and a Representative Director, and has formally stepped back from day-to-day work on the Super Mario series, handing it to a younger generation. He kept one action: he personally plays roughly the first 30 minutes of every game, to check whether it feels like Mario. He ranks 10th on our board, OVR 95: taste 99 and originality 99 are top of the entire list, while business 88 and scale 92 are the two lowest numbers in the top ten — the exact mirror of Gates (business 99, originality 94), written yesterday. This piece is about succession: the one thing a person keeps when they let go is the judgment they believe cannot be delegated.
