Miyamoto on why this is the right time for Mario on mobile, Super Mario Run’s debut on iOS, more
The Telegraph is the latest outlet to have published an interview with Shigeru Miyamoto about Super Mario Run. Nintendo’s legendary developer touched on why this is the right time for Mario to be on mobile, why the game is on iOS first, and more.
We’ve posted a few notable excerpts from the interview below. The Telegraph has the full discussion here.
On why this is the right time for Mario on mobile…
“About two years ago we announced that we wanted to look at smart devices as a new opportunity for a much larger audience to come into contact with our characters and our intellectual property and for that to maybe become the seed that grows into their wanting to have a closer relationship to our own hardware. The other thing that’s important to us, particularly with action games like this, is we require a high level of response. The hardware has to provide a stable experience and until recently we felt that we couldn’t get that. But as we saw with iPhone 7 today, the response is good enough now.”
On how Apple controls iPhone hardware, which is different from what Miyamoto is used to…
“Obviously we’re restricted by another company’s hardware but that’s the same with our own consoles. Really, when you’re developing you have your own creative idea but the real challenge is to do something unique and different in the same space that other people are creating in. It’s a framework in which you try to be as creative as possible – it’s not a limitation, I look at it as a lot of fun.
“The one thing we tend to do is focus on creating something that the largest number or people can play, so we would not look at creating something that will only work on the very latest version of an iPhone, say.”
On why Super Mario Run is coming to iOS first…
“We are planning to release it on Android phones in the future but for us iPhone and its operating system, iOS, are great to work on because it’s a very stable platform. And we found Nintendo and Apple share a lot of the same philosophies with a strong focus on an accessible interface, for instance. We meshed well with Apple.”
On how Nintendo’s own consoles will continue to be a focus…
“I love hardware platforms and Nintendo will continue to make our own hardware but what’s changed is that there was a time when Nintendo’s platforms were the most popular in the world and now we see smartphones are the most popular device in the world. So we’ll keep looking for opportunities in smartphones and when we see them we’ll design something specifically for that hardware.”
