Miyamoto news roundup – Wii HD, achievements, 2D gaming talk
Miyamoto on online/lack of online in New Super Mario Bros. Wii
“We have made games like Smash Bros. and Mario Kart, so we do have an interest in going online. With this kind of Mario game we wanted to focus on the living room experience. We could have made an online Mario game, but the effort and resources you devote to putting it online will result in sacrificing something else. This type of experience is better suited for the face to face, in the same room experience. Of course, in the future there’s the possibility of exploring remote connectivity in a Mario game.”
Miyamoto on why New Super Mario Bros. Wii didn’t end up on WiiWare…
“My perspective is that the business is, overall, a package-based business. Me personally, I need to have a physical product. Especially when it’s a nice red package like this. (laughs).”
Miyamoto on achievements for Wii…
“Well, the first thing is that I’m not really well versed in the 360 achievement system,I spend most of my time working on our own games, I don’t have a lot of time to look at what other people are doing. In this case, playing the game in a certain way and have something that unlocks is something we’ve been doing for years. I don’t expect everyone to apply that idea to their games, but we’ve been doing it for years.”
Miyamoto on user-created content for making Mario levels…
“This is something that I have interest in exploring, and Mario levels are well suited for it. Mario vs. DK series made by NST is one I’m involved in, and that’s a game that we’ve explored level creation. And on DSi we have Flipnote Studio where it lets users explore their creativity. I’ve always had an interest in those creation tools.”
Miyamoto on whether he considers the Super Guide to be cheating and if it can be applied to other titles…
“Obviously people will buy a game and if they can play through to the end they’ll do that. Some will buy a strategy guide, some will go online for hints, and all we’ve done is incorporate it in some way inside the game itself. We were able to create it for this game because we set out to make it specifically for New Super Mario Bros. Wii, and I think it depends on the priorities for other titles whether it may or may not make it in those games. We can’t really promise that it’ll be in every game from now forward, but at the same time there are some types of gameplay that are suited to a system like this. We’ll evaluate the titles on a case-by-case basis. Let’s use Zelda as an example, introducing it opens up a Pandora’s Box: do we solve the puzzles, do we show how to solve it in order to make them understand it, do we show the whole solution? It can be a difficult system, but we do see some value in it.”
Miyamoto on the response to Wii Music…
“One that definitely has possibility is Wii Music. The development team members were a bit shocked at the reaction and was hoping for a better response than it did. I think if we were to do anything about it we’d have to get everyone together to understand what their expectations were and what the gap was between the expectations and the result. We’ve talked about it, but nothing concrete at this point, or anything we can talk about at this point. There are people that use Wii Music and evaluate it highly, but then again there are people who have a good opinion on it, so the gap between positives and negatives seems to be very big, which is surprising.”
Miyamoto’s opinion on 3D/2D gaming…
“I don’t think that everything needs to be 3D, and I don’t think that because we’re seeing more 2D that we’re seeing everything shift in that direction. Maybe what’s going on is that people are realizing the benefits of 3D and 2D. With New Super Mario, and its multiplayer specifically, I think that multiplayer platforming is better suited to a 2D environment than a 3D one. Moving forward, developers will look at the objectives and make their decision on the benefits of each style. You have to have the courage to not get attached to the appearance of the game and pursuit the experience.”
Miyamoto on Wii HD…
“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with pretty graphics. If I have a high resolution television, I’d like to play in high resolution as well. As we see the penetration increase we’re going to see videogames, Nintendo games move in lock-step along with the technology. But what I don’t think is particularly true is that the graphics make the game. We’re still going to focus on the gameplay. We’ll take advantage of the technology as it comes out, but right now, this is what we offer.”
