Ever since 2004, Shigeru Miyamoto has been connected with the phrase “upending the tea table.” Eiji Aonuma delivered a speech at GDC that year, partially discussing how Miyamoto can sometimes change the direction of a game’s development when it’s heading towards completion.
Aonuma was asked to reflect back on the famous phrase at E3 last month. Does the Zelda producer find the “Miyamoto Test” to be bothersome? Actually, no. Aonuma said that he thinks that it can be “quite necessary and useful.”
“Well, back at GDC, when that conversation was presented, I think it painted a picture of Mr. Miyamoto’s role inside the company as coming in and being a really disruptive force in the development process, but I view it a very different way and I think a lot of people do. It’s that his time to come in and flip things on their head is part of the development timeline. It’s an event that happens. It’s almost a ritual in that sense. And it’s a necessary process, because I find that when he offers that feedback, a lot of the time, he points out things that I, myself, was having trouble with and maybe felt that I couldn’t solve or didn’t have a good time for or felt like we didn’t have the time for and he comes in and really gives focus to everything. So I’d really like to reinforce that fact that I don’t view the process that people refer to as ‘upending the tea table’ as something unpleasant. It’s actually quite necessary and useful.”
Burnout Crash, a new Criterion game set for the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade, was originally a project for Wii. Director Alex Ward told Giant Bomb that the studio’s initial idea involved drawing the road with the Wiimote and user-generated content.
However, the team felt that it was “quite boring”, so the project saw an overhaul. It’s interesting to hear how what was most likely an original, retail title for Wii has become a downloadable release for PSN/XBLA.
“(Burnout Crash) started off a long time ago. The original version started on the Wii, and it was a user-created game where you drew the road with a wand, and we thought if we made Crash mode you can make it all yourself. We did that for a few months and it actually turned out to be quite boring. One of our philosophies at Criterion is just ‘cos we’ve made it doesn’t mean we can’t delete it. So if we have to throw something away and shelve it, we could talk for hours about the number of ideas we’ve just thrown away because you get there and it doesn’t quite work.”
I’m not too sure that Burnout Crash would have fit within the file restrictions of WiiWare. That might be one reason why the project is no longer slated for Nintendo’s console.
Xbox 360 – 355,000 (-21%)
Wii – 325,000 (-23%)
DS – 290,000 (-43%)
PS3 – 240,000 (-21%)
3DS – 165,000
Shinobi (3DS) – T
Camping Mama: Outdoor Adventures (DS) – E
Moxie Girlz (DS) – E
Emily Archer The Curse of King Tut’s Tomb (DS) – E10+
Disney Fairies: Tinker Bell (DS) – E
Disney Fairies: Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure (DS) – E
Disney Fairies: Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue (DS) – E
Phineas and Ferb (DS) – E
Disney Phineas and Ferb: Ride Again (DS) – E
Imagine Fashion Designer (3DS) – E
Spy Kids: All the Time in the World (DS) – E
Pillow Pets (DS) – E
1001 Touch Games (DS) – E
FIFA Soccer 12 (3DS) – E
Monopoly Collection (Wii) – E
