Miyamoto on Super Mario 3D World, Wii U’s recent system update, teases new franchise
Shigeru Miyamoto spoke with Famitsu this week and provided some commentary on Super Mario 3D World. Among the items discussed is the game’s multiplayer. Miyamoto hopes that with the new game, the team can deliver “something where everyone can have fun competing against with each other”.
“With 3D World, we’re aiming for something where everyone can have fun competing against with each other, not just in co-op. If it was a straight competition, it’d be hard to tell characters apart from one other, so with this project we introduced different abilities for each character, letting you play in different ways.”
Miyamoto also spoke about including Princess Peach as a playable character. Doing so may attract more female players as well as beginners due to her floating ability.
“It is a surprise, isn’t it? With New Super Mario Bros. Wii, the only character you could play as besides Mario and Luigi was Toad, and we did get requests from female players for some other character they could play as. I suppose that, to many women, controlling a guy with a mustache isn’t really their first choice! So we thought of a few candidates, and we decide that if we had a Peach like she was in Super Mario Bros. 2 that was able to float a bit, that’d be easy to control for beginners.”
No major changes are being made to Super Mario 3D World. In other words, it won’t be an entirely different experience that people have grown accustomed to with Mario titles.
“Mario is a jumping action game, after all. With a lot of games these days, you have a ton of camerawork and you don’t really know what you’re doing, but you still get a lot of excitement and exhilaration out of it. I’m not saying those games are bad, but in the end, for us, whether it’s Mario or Pikmin, we think it’s the most fun if you work out what you’re playing in your mind and decide where to go next by your own free will. That’s something I think we should ensure stays in what we do.”
Aside from Super Mario 3D World, Miyamoto provided a few words on the Wii U’s most recent system update and also seemed to tease “a new franchise” for Wii U that could come out next year.
“With the most recent version update, the system runs a lot better, and while there will continue to be improvements in the future, I think it’s to the point where it’s a convenient thing to have in the living room. Of course, these sorts of updates mean nothing if we don’t put out games for it, and I hope people are looking forward to the games coming up. We’ll have Mario Kart 8 out next spring, and at that point we’ll have the whole lineup in place, so I think it’s about time we brought out a new franchise. I can’t give out details, but that’s the title that’s been keeping me pretty busy lately.”
