In speaking with Entertainment Weekly, Miyamoto-San talks about using games to tackle social issues and his approach to designing software. Here are some choice questions, but be sure to hit the source link for the full, interesting interview:

Have there been games that you thought would be fun but didn’t turn out that way?
Yes, that has definitely happened. In the past we’ve worked with some outside development houses on titles like F-Zero and Starfox — and let me just say that we were disappointed with the results… to be honest with you, Zelda: Twilight Princess is not doing very well at all in Japan. It is very disappointing. But it is doing okay here in America.

Why do you think Zelda isn’t doing well in Japan?
Well, I think a lot of people who bought the Wii are not necessarily the types of people who are interested in playing that kind of game. And a lot of the people who would want to play it [due to chronic shortages of the console] can’t find a Wii! But mostly, I think it’s that there are fewer and fewer people who are interested in playing a big role-playing game like Zelda.