Super Monkey Ball creator on the game’s origins, releasing on a Nintendo platform

Toshihiro Nagoshi has worked on a bunch of different games during his time at SEGA. Super Monkey Ball is one such franchise he’s been instrumental to, and during a recent interview, he reflected on the series’ early days.

Nagoshi was first asked about the idea for Super Monkey Ball came about. Ultimately, the goal was to create “a game that was simple to play and low cost to make”.

He said:

“Monkey Ball has been around for a long time since Daytona and at that time I was already planning and making various other games. As technology advances, how to play games become more and more complicated. If we talk a little about business, development costs were gradually increasing. In some ways it can’t be helped, but especially arcade games were essentially more intuitive and were made in a way to play easily and have a more fun time. Such an approach is essential, and the number of such games was gradually decreasing. If we were to feel sad about that, then there are only 2 ways to go. I wanted to pursue a game that was simple to play and low cost to make, and that was what I thought about. In the end, I didn’t think with Daytona that it would go beyond the arcades to the consumer and be played for more than 10 to 20 years.”

Nagoshi was next asked about putting Super Monkey Ball on a Nintendo console and whether this had an impact on development. This was one of the first titles SEGA released after going third-party in 2001.

According to Nagoshi:

“I think even now the Nintendo platform is still a game console that is played by a wide range of age groups, but basically, I think it’s hardware for kids and teens*. Amid all that, at that time, Nintendo was also putting a lot of effort into the kids market, and I thought it would suit. But it’s a Japanese studio and in my head it would sell extremely well worldwide, but I wanted it to sell the most in Japan. But actually, it sold quite well in America. That’s why the company president at that time praised us for making something to fit the US market, but while my heart said thank you, at that time, my head thought it was unexpected.”

Lastly, Nagoshi was asked if he had any unknown development stories. Nothing came to mind, but he did share the following:

“It’s not an unknown story, but in the sense that anyone can play and even kids find it challenging, I thought that it would be somewhat satisfying for gamer-level players. On the other hand, with YouTube becoming more and more popular, they are finding more ways to solve gameplay, yes? With expert solutions being uploaded, it’s becoming more and more different from the content we were thinking about. I was worried and at the same time I felt I could see the new future of Super Monkey Ball. So that may be the concept we thought of at first, but now and in the future, Monkey Ball is really a game that users have nurtured. I think this is a fairly unusual pattern – our thoughts may be one way, but when it comes to the players, they are another. Monkey Ball is not like that, but we just want the players to enjoy it. If the player increases that kind of enjoyment, then we also tried to create a level design that would increase that kind of enjoyment of the player, and that’s how I thought about it in creating it. I think it was a big change.”

*Note: this was an official SEGA video, but the translation of Nagoshi saying that he basically feels Nintendo hardware is for a younger demographic has been debated. His true words may have been more subtle, so we’d advise not harping on that line in particular.