Iwata talks about Miyamoto, says he used to think of him as a rival
Another excerpt from 4Gamer’s interview with Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has been translated. This time around, we get to read about Iwata’s thoughts on Miyamoto.
Interestingly enough, when Iwata was first starting out, he determined – in an arbitrary manner – that Miyamoto was his rival. Of course, Iwata had plenty of praise for the creator of Mario and Zelda as well.
Check out the full translation below:
Iwata: So, I have this strange sense of duty regarding the codifying of the ‘Miyamoto Methodology’, because I feel like it would be useful to the game industry if you could put it into words. I started up a project similar to ‘Iwata Asks’ for that purpose. And, of course, wanted to see it put into words so I could understand it too, because back when I was just starting out, I sort of arbitrarily decided that Miyamoto was my rival, though that’s embarrassing to admit now.
Kawakami: Your rival? Mr. Miyamoto?
Iwata: Yes. Would you believe that for a long time I’d just decided within myself, completely arbitrarily and not at all reciprocated, that he was my rival and I wanted to do something to just give him hell.
Kawakami: Well fair enough, but in the end did you ever manage to give him hell?
Iwata: Umm, well, maybe a little (wry laugh)
All: (Laughs)
Iwata: Miyamoto is, as you’d expect, an amazing person and without a doubt posseses a methodology that I don’t have. And I always felt it was a waste that it wasn’t verbalized.
Kawakami: It caused a buzz online, but Mr. Miyamoto’s definition of a good idea* is quite remarkable.
*”A good idea is something that does not solve just one single problem, but rather can solve multiple problems at once.”
Iwata: Yes, that one’s great. I thought ‘Yes, that’s a great quote! It’ll be popular with people’, so I went and spread it around as much as I could and it’s become quite well known (laughs).
Kawakami: Yes, it has. It’s like, to put it another way, realizing that killing two birds with one stone was about ideas too! (laughs)
Iwata: Yes. It’s the perspective that solving multiple problems with one solution is what an idea is.
Kawakami: But when people say ‘I got it!’ or ‘That’s it!’, it’s usually like that. So, I think from a cognitive point of view, it’s the correct definition.
Iwata: It’s probably the same as the ‘A-ha!’ moment that they talk about in neuroscience. Things that, at first glance, didn’t appear connected actually are and you can say ‘if I just do this to this thing and that thing, I can solve all these problems in one go and everything will work beautifully.’ That’s the ‘I got it!’ moment.
Kawakami: Yes.
Iwata: Miyamoto also says that when a problem just can’t be solved no matter what, someone is lying.
4Gamer: Lying?
Iwata: Yes. He doesn’t mean lying in a bad way, but that the person’s thought-process is mistaken, or they’re looking at the problem the wrong way.
Miyamoto is like, how do I put this, he’s a genius at creating perception changes. Explaining the value of changing one’s perception in an easily understood manner makes people happy, so it’s a very interesting skill (laughs).
