Miyamoto open to working with Retro for Zelda… and lots of other news
Shigeru Miyamoto has answered a bunch of questions in a new interview with Wired. One of the more interesting points from the discussion is that he expressed willingness to let Retro Studios collaborate with Nintendo on Zelda. He talks about Mario 3D Land, Skyward Sword, a little bit about Wii U, and a bunch of other topics.
All of Miyamoto’s comments can be found after the break.
Miyamoto on whether he sees going after core gamers as a strategy shift with the 3DS…
“Of course, I have my own limits as to how much game software I can take care of at any one time. But when it comes to the time when we were developing mainly software for the Nintendo DS, my concern was, as you pointed out, looking beyond the existing videogames then — in other words, how we could expand the definition of videogames. But when we started working on the Nintendo 3DS, inside myself there was a kind of shift in terms of priority. That is, I wanted to see how games can be changed when they are running on the Nintendo 3DS. When I say “the games,” [I mean] every kind of game including the series of videogames which were available in the past.
“Applying that to the Wii, I wanted to see how the Wii MotionPlus could change the gameplay even when it’s applied to existing gameplay.
“So, of course Nintendo’s main strategy has been the expanding of the gaming population. By that, what we are actually doing from the developer’s side is we are trying to expand the potential of videogames. To some extent, of course, we’ve been able to do that, and now, people are sometimes talking about the element of smartphones and how Nintendo’s market share might be eroded by the element of smartphones. But I do not think that we are directly competing against each other.
“However, when we look at how we have expanded the gaming population and how we have expanded the definition of videogames, some of that might be actually done by smartphones. When it comes to some portion of the population that we have expanded, smartphones might be able to provide some entertainment as well. So looking at the situation just like that, rather than simply trying to expand the definition of videogames in the same way as we used to do with Nintendo DS, I think, why don’t we look at the gaming population from a different perspective?
“More specifically: For example, there have got to be a number of people who used to play videogames but who are now, even temporarily, quitting from videogames. And why don’t we approach, for example, more female audiences? In order to approach those people who are taking a break, or those female customers, it so happens that applying the game mechanisms that we used to make in the 3-D world of the Nintendo 3DS might be a good idea. And actually we’ll be able to leverage upon our own ability to make… game know-how, the know-how that we use to make quality games.”
Miyamoto on whether or not Nintendo is outreaching to get developers to do what they did for the 3D effect in Mario, in that…
“Well, when it comes to Super Mario 3D Land, yes, that’s something that we really wanted to do by taking advantage of the capabilities of Nintendo 3DS. However, even though we were able to make something like that, we have no intention to force others to make a similar thing at all. Rather, I believe that I want every single developer to come up with their own ideas in order to take advantage of the capabilties of the Nintendo 3DS.
“And for the players as well, I hope they will be able to play just as they like. Sometimes they want to play with full 3-D and sometimes not. Taking for example Mario Kart 7, sometimes they may want to simply ease the 3-D effect and actually [steer by moving] the 3DS unit. That’s actually very fun. But at the same time, sometimes… they just might want to appreciate the 3-D effect of Mario Kart. So it actually depends upon the good balance between 3-D and not 3-D.
“When it comes to other companies and other developers, all I can say is, it’s good if they are going to study the way … they can take a perfect balance. Once again, we don’t have any intention to force or even educate them to do something like Mario Kart or Super Mario 3D Land, at all. For the game players as well, I hope that they can just leisurely and casually enjoy playing with Nintendo 3DS at their will.”
Miyamoto on his input into Mario 3D Land…
“When it comes to the real attraction of Nintendo 3DS, of course, first and foremost, people can point out [that] it’s the 3-D. And of course I really wanted to make something which can surprise people. You know, be it Super Mario 3D Land or any other thing in the entertainment business, what we’ve really got to do is find out the new, fun elements. And with that, we try to surprise people. For Nintendo 3DS, and for Super Mario 3D Land, we wanted to convey the charm and attraction of something 3-D, some things which are popping up.
“And what I’ve been doing in terms of developing or advising the making of Super Mario 3D Land, I think that hasn’t been largely changed ever since I started working on Donkey Kong many years ago. At first, of course, I need to know the … technological background of what can be done, what can’t be done, etc., etc. But at the same time, I never forget the viewpoint of the player. So sometimes I’m the developer, or engineer with the know-how and the knowledge of the technology. And sometimes I’m developing the game from the perspective of the game players. So I’ve never shifted my attention from that, anything at all like that. So what I’ve been trying to say to the other developers as well is just the same: Be … the developer who has technical background as well as the game players who are enjoying the videogame that you’re making.”
Miyamoto on whether or not he believes having a Western team/Japanese team working closely together would be an interesting model going forward…
“First of all, let me talk a little bit more in detail about how we collaborated with Retro Studios this time. Of course, they were taking care of the game designing aspect. Specifically, they were taking care of the design of the courses and the artwork about that. But when it comes to the gameplay and the control mechanism itself, that’s being taken care of by EAD once again.
“People often say that videogames made by Western developers are somehow different in terms of taste for the players, in comparison with Japanese games. I think that means that the Western developers and Japanese developers, they are good at different fields. And that resulted in a different taste in [their games]. Mario Kart, I believe, was good in order to express that kind of different taste because we have many kinds of different courses for the Mario karts to run and race around. So for each of the different courses, we could identify: Retro is supposed to take care of this course, and EAD is going to do that, and such and such. Then, we were able to join forces in order to realize a variety of different courses, a variety of different tastes. I think that’s one reason how it worked out well between a Japanese development team and a Western development team.
“As you know, we have already collaborated with Retro for the Metroid Prime series in the past. And I think when we talk about any other franchise, Zelda might be a possible franchise for that collaboration.”
Miyamoto on whether or not Skyward Sword was influenced by Western games (such as collecting tons of bugs and other items, that idea of a giant inventory, etc.)…
“I just don’t have that kind of idea actually. Of course, when it comes to Japanese role-playing games, in any role-playing game in Japan you’re supposed to collect a huge number of items, and magic, and you’ve got to actually combine different items together to make something really different. Of course, in the beginning, there’s got to be some influence from the original role-playing games that originated in the Western PC game format.
“And when it comes to The Legend of Zelda, we look at the recent series in the Legend of Zelda franchise other than creating the new items and making some new riddles and puzzles in the game franchise, we were simply making something larger. In other worse, in the course of the evolution of the Legend of Zelda, the only way that the developers were able to take was making something more. And for that matter, I think the inclusion of insect collecting and combining the different potions or medicines, for example, I think that I myself actually thought that was a good idea or direction to make a kind of change in the franchise for this time around.
“But then, when I’m asked, did the making of Skyward Sword have a great impact from the Western way of making RPGs, I just don’t think so. On the other hand, I also think that Zelda in the first place was a game where players were given a lot more freedom. In my opinion, the recent works of The Legend of Zelda lacked that kind of expanded freedom. With Skyward Sword one of the things I wanted to realize is going back to the basics, so that players would be given a lot of freedom.”
Miyamoto on voice acting in Zelda games…
“After all, it’s a question of, what do we really want to make? As the director, of course I want to be getting involved, have direct hands on as many parts and as many things as possible. So it depends upon what kind of direction we are taking for certain projects. For example, if we are pursuing photorealism, I do not think that the director can do a lot — in other words, the staff working on the forefront of development are having their hands on, and the director cannot have their hands on, these details.
“But what kind of game, it totally depends on what kind of direction I really want to [take]. And … whether the voice actors should play a key role right now is one of the elements that we’ve got to decide in terms of entirely what things we’d like to make. And talking specifically about the possibility of hiring voice actors to play over the roles of the main characters, we have to ask ourselves, after all, what kind of things do we really need them to speak out? Are they important, and are they really doing anything good for the expanding of the attraction of the Zelda franchise itself?
“My opinion is actually against that. I mean, by having the voice actor speaking out the main character’s opinions and messages, I’m afraid that they are going to narrow down the actual characteristics that people can imagine or apply to each character they are controlling, for example. But after all, it depends upon how much work the developer has to show, how many things the director can do, and is it going to do anything good to expand the charm or attraction of The Legend of Zelda? So once again, in terms of all these, if you ask me, isn’t it important for Link and other main characters to speak? I just cannot think so, because of, in terms of what I can do and what Zelda should do.”
Miyamoto on the reaction to Skyward Sword/Mario 3D Land…
“After all, from the beginning I have never forced all the developers to do what we have done this time around. From the very beginning, there were many people amongst the developers who were thinking just like I did. So I cannot deny that there weren’t any times that I needed to, well, rather aggressively encourage the developers to do this or do that. I cannot just deny that.
“But basically, our teams from the beginning were in the same mindset as to what we really needed to do with these games. And we had a strong conviction as to the outcome, in other words that we were doing something right in terms of the courses these games’ development should take. So I just believe that everyone is happy about the outcome by thinking that, yeah, we did it right.
“Basically, each developer wants to make something new all the time, but the fact of the matter is, Nintendo has so many franchise series. One after another, we are supposed to make sequels. But even though these two games that you just mentioned are regarded as sequels in their particular franchises, all the developers have the mindset that we were making something new, some brand-new game. Well, of course, from now on too, many developers have to work on sequels from the same franchises. But I think the result, or one of the outcomes of developing two games this time around is how they can work on the sequels as if making brand-new products.”
Miyamoto on whether or not he feels there need to be “Miyamoto download games” to encourage people to purchase games digitally…
“I just don’t care — as long as I can make something new and interesting, and if it can become a social topic, and spread to so many people, I’ll be working on anything. That’s my attitude. Of course, the situation today is rather different, many companies are simply looking around and seeing what’s trending, what’s hot. Inside that kind of frame, managers demand developers work on similar games. It’s rather difficult for me to say something exact, because unless I can fix my complete idea, I just cannot decide which media is going to be appropriate. What kind of size is going to be appropriate for development. But I think that is actually the right course for us to choose — in other words, developers first come up with a fresh idea. And then, once complete idea is fixed, they should decide, okay, in terms of a new idea, this media is most suited, and the size of the development teams should be just like that.
“And after all, I’m aging right now. Yes, I’m in a stage, in a position to be able to take some distance away from the forefront of the development teams right now and see things from a much broader perspective right now. In other words, I think I have many more options than before. In my head, myself. I am now in a position to make things much more freely right now, but the fact of the matter is I have ideas but I have not come to the stage where I can say exactly which one is going to be good for the network games, or what kind of final format shall be appropriate for social gaming. I even have some ideas about Flipnote Studio, things like that, but I [don’t] have a complete idea for that. Until I can decide, okay, this is going to be the way each one of these ideas is going to be combined and take shape, I just don’t say that it’s good for digital, it’s good for download. That’s all.”
Miyamoto on Find Mii…
“All the developers who worked on [Find Mii] were looking forward to some solid reactions from the customers. But because it was something really new we could not have strong conviction. So we had to start from something rather small. So I think everybody involved was happy with the outcome. I hope that people can look forward to something in that nature from now as well.”
Miyamoto on whether or not he’s involved in free content for the 3DS, like videos or Four Swords Anniversary Edition…
“The point here is that we really wanted to make it so that Nintendo 3DS shall be used by the users every day. So that we wanted to include as many motives for the users to do so as possible with Nintendo 3DS. But we did so probably too fast. And then some people even said you really don’t have to purchase anything else, any software at all, now that you have the camera and the packaged software inside the Nintendo 3DS which are enjoyable enough. But of course, until now you already have a selection of packaged software and download software to choose from.
“And you know, after all, whenever we are coming up with a new product, if the only attraction is yes, we have intense extensive file capability, it’s not interesting for the developers at all. Any time we are offering something new, we want to include some different attractions instead of simply beefed-up capabilities. That’s why we are trying to express to the public that you can do something really new and unprecedented by taking advantage of the communication capability of Nintendo 3DS, for one thing. For that matter, we still have ideas that can be expressed on Nintendo 3DS, so please look forward to them.”
Miyamoto on MotionPlus for Wii U games…
“Of course, I’m not in a position to be able to say a lot about Wii U today. But Wii U is going to be the successor machine for the Wii, so of course, those controllers including the Wii MotionPlus shall be used for Wii as well.”
Miyamoto on the Measure Up demo for Wii U shown at E3…
“After all, that can demonstrate the fact that interactive entertainment has much greater potential than we might be imagining today. The fact of the matter is, we’ve been utilizing in this industry just a fraction of the possibility or working on a tiny portion of the possibility in order to inflate that as [much as possible].
“But when we look at things more calmly, there’s got to be a lot more things we can do: There are some computer devices and they can recognize what we are doing, what we players, humans are doing, and they’re going to give us reactions and feedback. Measuring a length is just one thing. If it’s going to be interesting, it has just that kind of small possibility, a big potential to be expanded into something really fun. After all, whenever we are trying to make a new interface, we are looking to that: How can we make it so we can expand a new horizon in terms of interactive entertainment?”
Miyamoto on whether or not the long development cycles finally “caught up to him”…
“Anyway, I’m interested in doing a variety of many other things. …I’m saying this because I have a solid reaction from the teams, the existing teams. I was able to nurture the developers inside Nintendo who were able to create something like this or something like that [gestures to Super Mario 3D Land and Skyward Sword signs in the room] by now.”
