Sakurai says Smash Bros. may not have existed without Iwata, credits him for keeping it alive after Melee

Masahiro Sakurai and Satoru Iwata had a close relationship over the years, and now Sakurai has spoken more about in a recent interview. As part of that, we get to hear more about how Nintendo’s late president impacted Super Smash Bros.

Sakurai, who’s the director of the series, attributed the existence of Smash Bros. to Iwata given that he worked on the original prototype. Plus, Iwata still wanted Sakurai on board with the franchise after he left HAL Laboratory. Sakurai noted that if he wasn’t asked to work on Smash Bros. following Melee, the series could have died out.

Sakurai had this to say when asked about how meeting Iwata impacted him:

“First of all, if it weren’t for Mr. Iwata, I might not have joined HAL Laboratory, and if Mr. Iwata hadn’t made the prototype for Smash Bros., Smash Bros. might not have been released to the world. If Mr. Iwata hadn’t asked me to make Smash Bros. Brawl after I left HAL Laboratory, Smash Bros. itself might have died out. There’s no doubt that he influenced me in many ways. However, when it comes to my craftsmanship, I think I’ve learned a lot on my own. In fact, when I joined the company, a senior colleague was mean to me, and when I asked him, ‘Please tell me the difference between a proposal and a specification,’ he said, ‘A proposal is a proposal. A specification is a specification.’ I had no choice but to think about the difference myself, and eventually I got to the point where I could say on YouTube, “It’s good to write a proposal like this for a presentation.”

Something else we heard about Smash Bros. is that Iwata actually helped come up with the series’ original name. You can read more about that here.

Thanks to Gen Hoshino for the interview quotes.