Author: John Scalzo

It’s Thursday and Nintendo has added another batch of games you’ve never heard of to the 3DS eShop, DSiWare Shop, and Wii Shop. Although, to be fair, Paper Wars: Cannon Fodder has had a pretty successful life on the PSP and mobile devices.

Here’s all you need to know about this week’s new releases:

Pushmo (3DS eShop) – Push, pull and climb through incredible puzzle-like climbing toys called Pushmo. Enjoy adorable characters, charming 3D graphics and endless replay value.

Castle Conqueror: Against (DSiWare) – You are a great warrior from an ancient tribe. The god of the island bestows his blessing upon you, giving you the power to curse the invaders and save your tribe.

Word Searcher IV (DSiWare) – You’ll need a sharp eye and a quick mind to complete these 100 themed word search puzzles.

Paper Wars: Cannon Fodder (WiiWare) – Paper Wars: Cannon Fodder is a tower defense video game developed by several Polish and Hungarian outsourced programmers of iFun4all team, in the cheapest way you can imagine. What’s the so-called brilliant goal of the game? You would never guess. It is about destroying all enemies! The same well-known thrilling story, hordes of cold-blooded enemies trying to survive the Armageddon!

It seems that Shigeru Miyamoto himself doesn’t even know when Shigeru Miyamoto is planning to retire.

A few hours after Wired broke the news that Miyamoto was planning to step down from his position as the company’s Managing Director soon, Nintendo has issued a “correction” declaring that to be untrue. Speaking to Reuters, a Nintendo spokesperson denied every part of the Wired interview:

“This is absolutely not true. There seems to have been a misunderstanding. He has said all along that he wants to train the younger generation. He has no intention of stepping down. Please do not be concerned.”

This is a far cry from Miyamoto’s own words to Wired, which makes me think Nintendo is doing a little damage control. And why not? The news of Miyamoto’s pseudo-retirement caused the company’s stock to fall two percent today.

For the record, here’s what Miyamoto told Wired:

“Inside our office, I’ve been recently declaring, ‘I’m going to retire, I’m going to retire.’ I’m not saying that I’m going to retire from game development altogether. What I mean by retiring is, retiring from my current position.”

Sounds like a retirement announcement to me.

Shigeru Miyamoto has guided the good ship Nintendo for 30 years now, practically since the beginning of the company’s forays into video games. But now, after creating Donkey Kong, Mario, Link, Star Fox, the Pikmin, and countless others, the famed developer is stepping down from his position as Managing Director of Nintendo EAD.

“Inside our office, I’ve been recently declaring, ‘I’m going to retire, I’m going to retire,'” Miyamoto told Wired. “I’m not saying that I’m going to retire from game development altogether. What I mean by retiring is, retiring from my current position.”

Miyamoto still plans to work for Nintendo and he still plans to develop new games, but he also revealed that he plans to move on to smaller projects, possibly even something he can do by himself:

“What I really want to do is be in the forefront of game development once again myself,” Miyamoto said. “Probably working on a smaller project with even younger developers. Or I might be interested in making something that I can make myself, by myself. Something really small.”

Work on this new project will likely begin in 2012, and Miyamoto told Wired that he’d like to show the game off publicly after a year.

You know how people are always going on about something insignificant being “the end of an era?” This announcement is truly the end of an era. It’s my belief that no one has done more for video games than Shigeru Miyamoto and his absence from the grand stage will be felt for decades to come.

But, to paraphrase the man himself, even if it’s delayed forever, I’m sure his next project will be great.