Think about it.

Shigeru Miyamoto became a senior member / Representative Director on the Board of Directors at Nintendo on May 31st, 2002. He was promoted from a bottom-rung junior director / department head to one of the key budget strategists of the company.

At Nintendo, video game projects are greenlit with a specific budget, often at least two or three years before they end up coming out.

When Miyamoto became a Representative Director, he became one of the people responsible for greenlighting the budgets for video game projects for projects that would come out in 2005 onward (like New Super Mario Bros.)

If the budget was too high, now Miyamoto had the chance to say "Sorry, that's too much money, go back to the drawing board." Before that he could make suggestions, but he didn't have the final say.

Of course, even though he became a senior member in 2002, there was still Satoru Iwata and Atsushi Asada (the real head of Nintendo until 2005) that he had to make decisions with.

Once Atsushi Asada retired, it was just Miyamoto and Satoru Iwata who called the shots on game budgets. And that's when you start to notice more budget games. I don't know exactly if it was Miyamoto's idea or Iwata's idea originally, but their focus did start to increasingly include projects like New Super Mario Bros. Wii, which produced extremely cheaply with recycled assets.

It's also around that time that Miyamoto had the bright idea to remove all character customization in Mario games to "capture the essence of Mario." I can't help but see a connection between the two...after all, it's far cheaper to have all Toads look the same than pay a team of character designers.

Think about it.

Shigeru Miyamoto became a senior member / Representative Director on the Board of Directors at Nintendo on May 31st, 2002. He was promoted from a bottom-rung junior director / department head to one of the key budget strategists of the company.

At Nintendo, video game projects are greenlit with a specific budget, often at least two or three years before they end up coming out.

When Miyamoto became a Representative Director, he became one of the people responsible for greenlighting the budgets for video game projects for projects that would come out in 2005 onward (like New Super Mario Bros.)

If the budget was too high, now Miyamoto had the chance to say "Sorry, that's too much money, go back to the drawing board." Before that he could make suggestions, but he didn't have the final say.

Of course, even though he became a senior member in 2002, there was still Satoru Iwata and Atsushi Asada (the real head of Nintendo until 2005) that he had to make decisions with.

Once Atsushi Asada retired, it was just Miyamoto and Satoru Iwata who called the shots on game budgets. And that's when you start to notice more budget games. I don't know exactly if it was Miyamoto's idea or Iwata's idea originally, but their focus did start to increasingly include projects like New Super Mario Bros. Wii, which produced extremely cheaply with recycled assets.

It's also around that time that Miyamoto had the bright idea to remove all character customization in Mario games to "capture the essence of Mario." I can't help but see a connection between the two...after all, it's far cheaper to have all Toads look the same than pay a team of character designers.

That would mean that Miyamoto was responsible for the Wii era of games like DKCR, NSMB, and Kirby's Epic Yarn. Those games made a ton of money and were all fun to play. Twilight Princess and Super Mario Galaxy didn't seem to be cheap games to make and they came out in 2006/7. So that seems to put your idea to bed. I think one of the biggest factor's to the Wii U's failure was that Wii U games took too long to make, and were too expensive to make. That's why there were so many software droughts when compared to the Wii, and GameCube. 

Well obviously there are big-budget exceptions (like Breath of the Wild, Xenoblade, etc.) I'm talking about the overall libraries of consoles. The Wii U feels like it has more cheap 1st-party cash-ins (Wii Sports Club, Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival, Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash, NES Remix, Mario Maker) than in the Gamecube era.

Arms is also lacking content and Splatoon 2 feels like Splatoon 1.5, in my opinion. Just...more and more titles coming out of Nintendo have that budget feel to them. And a lot more 1st-party remasters which is also cost-efficient.

This is a fantastic post.

Miyamoto's decisions led to a largely negative refocusing of priorities in Mario games, with the RPG series taking a large toll.

Ah, that makes sense then. It also explains why we went from Galaxy to 3D World. I do gotta say I love Splatoon 2, and I'm not sure what they could have added to make it better. 

Here are five off the top of my head:

1) A new, less-arcadey adventure, like one where you explore the post-apocalyptic world of Splatoon instead of just fighting the same baddies from the first game

2) A new final boss, instead of the exact same one as last time (with the exact same music to boot)

3) More new characters

4) More new modes, instead of just one new mode (Salmon Run)

5) A larger, more explorable plaza

But Splatoon is post, post apocalyptic. Squids have their own society and everything. So there's no desolate wasteland to explore. Maybe have some sort of RPG system set up for single player? But who wants to play that? Splatoon is a multiplayer game first and foremost. 

I agree that it needs more new modes. Original Splatoon didn't come with Tower Control, or Rainmaker modes though. Give it time. 

How would a bigger plaza benifitt anything though? They already expanded the things that Spyke/Merch can do, and there's the food truck now. What else needs to be added? You can't dye your clothes or anything because they need to be the same color as your team. Maybe put in an animal crossing style T-Shirt design thing? 

Nintendo software research and development costs:

1999-March 2000: 16,495 million yen
2000-March 2001: 16,591 million yen
2001-March 2002: 16,791 million yen
2002-March 2003 (aka. when Miyamoto started to have influence over the budgets of games): 14,598 million yen