Miyamoto on his deep Mario Run involvement, Switch envisioned for families, more
Today, Wired put up a new interview of its own with Shigeru Miyamoto. Miyamoto talked Super Mario Run, including how he hasn’t been involved with a project like this since 2007. He also commented on the audience for Switch and why we won’t be seeing the original Super Mario Bros. on phones.
Continue on below for some excerpts from the interview. You can read Wired’s full piece here.
On how Miyamoto hasn’t been so intimately involved in a Mario game since 2007…
“When we’re taking new steps like this—certainly with Super Mario Galaxy, that was a new step, and this being our first step into mobile, this is also a new step—that I get more directly involved.”
– Super Mario Galaxy was the last Mario title in which he was involved “in terms of me actually directly looking at all of the level designs.”
On how Mario Run isn’t a “small” game…
“I’ve been involved from early on all the way through. It’s actually become quite a big team. It’s turned into quite a big project,” Miyamoto says.
– Three development teams worked on the game’s three features in parallel: the main game, the multiplayer Toad Rally, and the Farmville-esque Kingdom Builder
On how Super Mario Run and the Universal Studios partnership with Nintendo share similar goals…
“That’s a very big project in scope, and has a very large budget. We’re really looking at the opportunity to reach both of those audiences; reconnect with older ones and establish new connections with younger ones.”
On how Nintendo still envisions the Nintendo Switch as a family gaming machine…
“We have always felt that a Nintendo system is best designed to be enjoyed in the living room by the family in front of the TV… the way that people use the television set has changed.”
– Shouldn’t be considered an abandonment of the big screen
On the lack of Super Mario Bros. on phones…
“I don’t want to do anything that boring. We’ve been making Mario games for a long time, and Mario’s evolved with every new platform. For me, it wouldn’t be interesting work to just take the existing Super Mario Bros. game, put it on an iPhone, (and) emulate a plus control pad. That’s not very fun creatively. We’re more interested in looking at how we can be creative with Mario, and design for iPhone in a way that takes advantage of the uniquenesses of that device and the uniquenesses of that input and the features that that device has. For us, that is much more rewarding creative work.”
“If we did put Super Mario Bros. on the iPhone, (people) would say, ‘Wow, this is well-done, but are you actually going to expect me to pay money for it? Why isn’t this free?’ We try to create products that have value that people are willing to pay for.”
