Miyamoto responds to harsh criticism of Wii Music

Shigeru Miyamoto has been discussing Wii Music as of late, and today there’s another issue that has been brought up. Miyamoto recently responded to some of the harsh reviews of Wii Music handed out by critics, most specifically IGN’s Matt Casamassina.

“There’s two ways I can talk about that. One is, I think — you point out the IGN review in particular. And my guess is that rather than it being an instance that the individual who wrote that — I’m not sure if it was Matt [Casamassina, IGN’s Wii editor] or not — but whoever wrote that review, I think that the perception is because they’re a core gamer they don’t like “Wii Music.” And, in fact, what I think is that the ideas behind “Wii Music” simply didn’t resonate with that individual. I don’t think it was a case of: because they like games, they don’t like “Wii Music.” That person simply didn’t like what we presented in ‘Wii Music.’ I think the other thing to us that’s very important is there’s two things. Number one is that we continue to work on the same types of games that we have made for many, many years. Beyond that, we have branched out and we are creating additional products aside from those that, like “Wii Music” and like “Wii Fit” are very different in tyle and have a very broad appeal. The way that our teams work, as I mentioned earlier, is that a lot of the team members, let’s say for example from a “Mario” or a “Zelda” team, will swap in and out among different teams. And so I think internally for us, the ability to have people who have been working on the same game for many, many years and to be able to take a break from it and work on a product like “Wii Music,” where they’re able to look at design from a different perspective and broaden their own perspective in terms of the types of things that you can do in interactive entertainment [is good.]. Then, I think, when they go back and take that experience with them back to the other teams, back to, say the “Zelda” team or the “Mario” team, when they’re working on those franchises, they’re going to be able to draw on that experience to create experiences that not only are broader-appealing for those franchises but also are bringing in new ideas that are going to appeal to people who have been very familiar with those franchises for a long time.”