Nintendoboss Shigeru Miyamoto is often quoted as having said some variation of, “A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is foreverbad” - but as it turns out, those words may have never actually left his mouth. The phrase really is the perfect adage for our modern times: the most recentCyberpunkupdate was pushed backat the last minute, several majorUbisoft releases were recently delayedduring a company earnings call, and fans are still waiting forHollow Knight: Silksong, which is due out in 2025after a six-year wait- unless…
It really does seem like games are constantly getting shelved, delayed, canceled, et cetera - chalk it up to overlong development cycles, or too-early announcements, or unrealistic publisher expectations, or a combination of the three, but it’s happening everywhere. This quote, often attributed to Miyamoto, is generally used to assuage player concerns when a game’s release is pushed back, reminding them that a delay isn’t always indicative of trouble in paradise. Recent developments point to the fact thatMiyamoto may never have said anything of the sort- but if not him, who said it?
Shigeru Miyamoto’s Most Famous Quote
Where It Comes From & How It Got Attributed To Miyamoto
Endless variations of “a delayed game is eventually good…” have cropped up over the years, almost always preceded or followed by Miyamoto’s name. It’s effectively a guarantee: whenever a game is delayed, there’s someone, somewhere, invoking these words. In an interview on the occasion ofHalf-Life’s 25th anniversary, Valve co-founder Gabe Newell even made up his own version: “Late is just for a little while, suck is forever.”
But, asA Critical Hit!points out,there’s no real evidence that Miyamoto ever said this. It’s first attributed to him in a 2003 post on Usenet (now Google Groups), where userCharles E. Hardwigephrased it, “A delayed game is eventually good, a bad game is bad forever.” An even earlier Usenet post byportia_EHattributes it to a motto used at Blizzard whileStarcraftwas in development: “A late game is late until the day it ships, a bad game is bad forever!”
In popular culture, the quote goes back as far as 1997, when it was used in the print magazineGamefan(viaEthan Johnsonon X, formerly Twitter). It’s listed there as an “industry catchphrase.” But in truth,the quote goes back even further.
Miyamoto’s Famous Words Belong To Another Developer
Siobhan Beeman Coined The Phrase
The true source of the “delayed game” quote is Siobhan Beeman, an industry vet and former project director at Origin with credits onWing Commander,Ultima 6, andThe Lamplighters League. It was first documented by her partner, Ellen Guon Beeman, also a developer on theWing Commanderseries and a fantasy/sci-fi author.
Speaking at the Computer Games Developers' Conference of 1996,Ellen quoted Siobhan as saying, “A game is only late until it ships, but it’s bad forever.“Siobhan later confirmed toA Critical Hit!that, “to the best of my recollection I came up with that phrasing,” although she acknowledges that the sentiment already existed in the industry long before she voiced it.
Ultimately, this quote was attributed to Miyamoto through a series of mistakes - a misquote, then a misattribution, then another, and another, all the way down, until it became known as his most famous quote. While it certainly seems like something that could’ve come out ofNintendo, credit is truly due to Siobhan Beeman for inventing one of the gaming industry’s most widely quoted phrases.
