Enomoto shares his first impressions of the 3DS

This information comes from the latest Iwata Asks with PES creator Shinji Enomoto…

Iwata: What was your first impression of the Nintendo 3DS, Enomoto-san?

Enomoto: When I first saw it, I thought, “What in the world is this thing!?” I’d never seen a 3D effect that didn’t involve special glasses, so I was startled; I thought, “Huh? They can really do this?” As you’d expect, I think sports broadcasts are very well suited to 3D. I think I got a good chance in being able to see how “PES” would look if I recreated it on this.

Iwata: By having that perception of depth, it’s probable that projected images will acquire more of a feeling of space. We were really interested to hear what would happen when we showed this to everyone on the “PES” team.

Enomoto: Before now, when we structured soccer games, the only way to add a feeling of perspective was to change the size of the shadows. 3D goes beyond that form of expression.

Iwata: Does that mean that, while you were startled, you also immediately felt how well it would work with soccer games, sensed its appealing elements?

Enomoto: Exactly.

Iwata: When the pictures actually began to move in 3D, what sort of response did you and the people on your team feel?

Enomoto: The truth is, there was a blind spot: originally, in order to make the game system for the “PES” perform smoother, we hadn’t drawn the turf on the stadium field to be seen on a 3D screen. Adjusting that for the Nintendo 3DS was quite a challenge.

Iwata: You mean, you needed power in places you hadn’t expected. To begin with, moving 22 players on a portable game device must have been quite a challenge.

Enomoto: Right. After we overcame that, it started to look really good.

Iwata: When you saw it in 3D and now could sense depth, was there something that you, the people making the game, found interesting?

Enomoto: In this game, you can enjoy 3D soccer from five perspectives, and you can also set it to a first-person perspective, which is very close to the athletes’ line of sight. It feels as though you’re standing on the field; I think the sense of tension you’re able to feel around you is something the 3D made possible.

Iwata: So you have the usual perspective, where you have a bird’s-eye view of the whole game, but as a new challenge, on the Nintendo 3DS, there’s also a perspective where you yourself are on the field.

Enomoto: That’s correct. From that first-person perspective, when the athletes clash on the field, it feels far more real than it ever has before. Soccer is a fierce sport, you know; bodies collide. Of course, to be honest, when we put in a first-person perspective camera, to make use of the 3D, effects we hadn’t seen coming were produced as a result.

Iwata: When you changed the location of the camera and expressed the action that way, it changed the way you saw things, even the things you’d made in the usual way.

Enomoto: Yes. It was our first experience making games on Nintendo 3DS, so I think there were parts that we didn’t understand.

Iwata: I’m sure there are a lot of discoveries being made one after another at this point, just as there were when people started developing with the polygon system. The 3DS is still right at the starting line; as it becomes popular as a platform, I think more things will become possible in the process.

Enomoto: I think that, just as polygons developed, by continuing to make games for Nintendo 3DS, we’ll begin to see new possibilities.

Check out the full interview here.