I hope he is teaching the people under him how to make a game. But I don't really think he contributes very much on games like SMG.

Shiggy seems like a Charles Schultz type of guy. That is to say he will create a final masterpiece and save it for after he dies.

I would compare it more to Steve Jobs leaving Apple which does not bode well for Nintendo's future after he leaves.

Hopefully he has been working long and hard grooming a replacement, I would hate to see Big N fail (again).

The Second Coming



 VIVA LA SHIGGY!

God the way your talking, is like when Thierry Henry left Arsenal... everyone said we would fail and be an average side... and well... you know the rest ...

Nintendo's success isn't dependant on Miyamoto. See: the 1990's.

Nintendo lost it's way around 1990 with the launch of the SNES. They managed to be market leader during the all-destructive first "console wars" anyways. They declined further with the N64. Miyamoto made one masterpiece after another throughout the 90s, though, mostly in the platform and adventure genres. There's no doubt he was the greatest (most important) game designer of the 90s, just as he was for the 80s, and yet Nintendo declined throughout the whole decade, their saving grace being the non-internal Pokemon.

Right around the time the Gamecube launched, Nintendo found their way again. Iwata taking the helm was the biggest turning point. The Gamecube era became a rebuilding period, but the corporate culture was corrected at the start of this era. And now with DS and Wii, Nintendo is again taking over the world.

What did Miyamoto have to do with all this? He's proven he can make ground-breaking games even within a broken corporate culture and backwards business strategy, but his games don't make those failures disappear and make the company succeed. It was Yamauchi and especially Iwata rethinking the company's culture and strategy that allowed Miyamoto to create breakthrough games like Nintendogs and Wii Sports, but meanwhile Nintendo has also had breakthroughs like Brain Training and Animal Crossing that have little or nothing to do with Miyamoto.

Certainly it was Yokoi and Miyamoto that defined the Nintendo strategy of perpetual disruption in the first place, starting with Game and Watch and Donkey Kong. But only when the business people embrace the strategy does the company flourish. Miyamoto is certainly a valuable asset unlike any other in the gaming industry, but if Nintendo keep their current culture and strategy, they will succeed long after he's gone.

Damn, I can't even think of that. Shiggy's death ('cause he's never going to retire and Nintendo would never let him go) would be a serious blow for Nintendo. He's one of the few game designers out there who is in charge of big-budget products and still understands what the word "fun" means.

 When was this fail that you speak of?

The N64. After the SNES and NES, it has to be considered a failure, no matter if Nintendo made money on it or not. 

 And what did this have to do with the games that Shigeru Miyamoto was making?