Shigeru Miyamoto, the acclaimed creator behind iconic franchises such as Mario and The Legend of Zelda, has voiced his support for video game remakes. This defense comes amid ongoing discussions within the gaming community about whether developers should prioritize creating entirely new games over revisiting older titles. Miyamoto contends that remakes serve a crucial purpose by making classic games accessible to players who may have missed them during their original releases.
"Some people might say there are a lot of remakes, but after five years, a lot of people have outgrown games and stop playing them," Miyamoto told Famitsu, as translated by Nintendo Everything. "Young people today don’t have the opportunity to play games from 10 years ago, so remaking them to be more playable and releasing them again is a good way to meet the demand." He further explained that the commercial success of a remake can provide a company with additional resources that can then be allocated to the development of new projects.
Miyamoto also noted that acknowledging original games through remakes can pave the way for future developments. "Letting people know the original games also leads to future developments, so we’ve been actively pursuing that recently,” he stated.
Nintendo has a long history of releasing remakes, and Miyamoto's comments precede the upcoming release of The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time remake for the Switch 2. The trend of remakes is widespread across the industry, with other notable examples such as Halo: Campaign Evolved, a remake of the 2001 game set to launch in early access on July 23, which will omit competitive multiplayer. Industry data reflects the popularity of these revisited titles, with a 2025 study indicating that nearly all gamers played a remake or remaster in the previous year, and another report revealing that remakes and remasters collectively achieved over 138 million downloads in 2025.