Miyamoto’s contributions to Nintendo and the gaming industry as a whole are endless. He’s brought us Mario, Zelda, Donkey Kong, Star Fox, Pikmin, and plenty of other franchises/games. Can you imagine what gaming would be like had those series never been created? I certainly can’t!

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Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker originally imagined as a Zelda game

Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 11 Comments

Shinya Hiratake is the director of Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker. It was many years ago that he thought about a game concept that would take place in a series of small diorama-like levels where the hero couldn’t jump. Players would move the camera around the diorama and guide the hero to the exit.

Who was the hero, you ask? Why, Link of course! Hiratake felt that if he removed the jumping mechanic from a platformer, he could greatly shrink a game’s levels. However, he believed that the concept wasn’t a fit for the Mario universe since most of those characters can jump. It was then that The Legend of Zelda’s Link came to mind.

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Image: Miyamoto’s original sketches for Super Mario Bros. sprites

Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, Images | 6 Comments

An image has surfaced showing Shigeru Miyamoto’s original sketches for Super Mario Bros. sprites. View it above!

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Miyamoto: Nintendo aims to create game ideas “that could have never happened before”, no news about VR yet

Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 63 Comments

Earlier today, Telegraph published an interview with Nintendo’s legendary video game creator Shigeru Miyamoto. Much of what Miyamoto had to say focused on the Pikmin Short Movies, but there was time for a few other topics as well.

First, when it comes to what other companies are doing, Miyamoto remarked:

“What the other companies are doing makes business sense. But it’s boring. The same games appear on every system. At Nintendo we want an environment where game creators can collaborate and think of ideas for games that could have never happened before.”

And when asked about virtual reality, Miyamoto stated:

“I have nothing to tell you about Nintendo’s involvement in virtual reality. We have nothing to announce yet.”

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Miyamoto shares a message about the Pikmin Short Movies

Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 3 Comments

Following the most recent Nintendo Direct, an official website opened for the Pikmin Short Movies. You can feel free to access the page right here.

The site contains an overview of the Pikmin Short Movies, a trailer, and even a message from Miyamoto. Miyamoto’s message doesn’t contain anything mind-blowing, but it’s a neat little thing to see. View the message in full below.

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Miyamoto teases the future of Pikmin

Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 23 Comments

Based on recent comments from Shigeru Miyamoto, it sounds like we can look forward to another Pikmin game in the future.

Last week, Miyamoto mentioned the Pikmin shorts and Pikmin 3 demo, which just released yesterday. He said that these types of campaigns “will lay the groundwork for the next iteration of ‘Pikmin’ in the future.”

Miyamoto stated:

If I am allowed to do a little bit of PR here, we released a series of short films called “Pikmin Short Movies” on October 25 at the Tokyo International Film Festival. If you have not seen it yet, I hope you will check out the information on the Internet. The short film is only about 20 minutes, but this is our very first animated movie that uses “Pikmin” as its theme. We’re planning to make this 3D movie available on Nintendo 3DS and make the HD version of the movie available on Wii U in the near future. At the same time, we have also prepared a demo version of “Pikmin 3” so anyone who hasn’t played Pikmin can experience its unique joy. Continually launching campaigns after the release of software will lay the groundwork for the next iteration of “Pikmin” in the future. And needless to say, we want it to be one of the motivations for potential consumers to purchase Wii U. We are making a variety of different efforts.

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Nintendo on judging the future of technology, cultivating younger staff

Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 1 Comment

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, senior managing director Genyo Takeda, and Shigeru Miyamoto had plenty to say about judging the future of technology at the Big N’s financial results briefing last week. There was also a great deal of discussion about cultivating younger staff, which will be necessary when some of the higher-ups – like Shigeru Miyamoto – retire.

Head past the break for all of the comments from Iwata, Takeda, and Miyamoto. There’s definitely a lot here!

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Miyamoto says Nintendo focused a bit too much on Wii U’s two screens, not enough on NFC

Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 5 Comments

When the Wii U launched, there was a consistent focus on the console’s two screens. Gamers wondered about the new experiences that would be possible and potential asymmetric gameplay.

Even though it’s important to highlight the uniqueness of Wii U’s two screens, Shigeru Miyamoto admitted at Nintendo’s financial results briefing last week, “we might have focused too much on the unique uses of the two screens.” Miyamoto feels that the company “should have put more effort into using the NFC functionality much earlier”, though Nintendo is “now moving forward with projects that make use of NFC in a variety of unique ways.”

As previously mentioned, Nintendo is looking into amiibo cards. We’ll also be seeing “smaller and even more affordable amiibo figures in the future”.

Head past the break for Miyamoto’s full comments.

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Miyamoto on dev time, spin-off games for major franchises, plenty of Wii U games next year

Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News, Wii U | 100 Comments

Nintendo commented on a variety of topics during the Q&A portion of its financial results briefing earlier this week. One of these points was development time.

We all know that the Wii U suffered from a lack of games at launch. Thankfully, in the future, this is something that Nintendo should be able to avoid.

Shigeru Miyamoto stated that Nintendo “already completed the step of learning new development techniques,” meaning there should be fewer “less developmental delays stemming from learning new hardware.”

Also part of Nintendo’s plans are to create spin-off titles based on major franchises. These projects will be made “on a smaller scale”. Miyamoto said that the company is “preparing to expand on our characters while also increasing the number of software we output and allowing our customers to have their next experiences in certain franchises without waiting three years.”

Finally, Miyamoto mentioned that Nintendo is working with third-party companies more regularly to make games – think asset creation, cut-scenes, etc. The Big N started to work with some of these developers for the first time this year. “We are in the process of creating a system where we are actively seeking outside assistance to help us create an abundance of major titles,” Miyamoto said.

If you’re interested in checking out Miyamoto’s full comments, head past the break.

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A few more details about the Pikmin shorts and bits from Miyamoto

Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News, Wii U | 2 Comments

Famitsu posted a report about the Pikmin short films and Shigeru Miyamoto’s appearance at the Tokyo International Film Festival. Read on below for a summary of what was shared, courtesy of NeoGAF’s “StreetsAhead”.

-The films were screened in 3D at the event.
-The films are ‘Late-Night Juice’ (2 mins), ‘The Treasure Inside The Bottle’ (8 mins), and ‘The Rough Day’ (13 mins).
-Miyamoto showed off some of the storyboards he made in Flipnote 3D at the event.
-He joked that with the time he put in making these short films he probably could have made about 2 games.
-He was reticent to use the Rock Pikmin idea at first, but with the mechanic involing breaking glass/crystal in the game came to the conclusion that rocks breaking it would be easiest to convey.
-Rock (and probably Flying) Pikmin don’t appear in the films since they were made at the same time as Pikmin 3 and they hadn’t finalized everything about those types yet.
-He mentioned that he’s working on the Star Fox game for Wii U.
-They’d like to release the Pikmin 3 demo on Wii U and the films on the 3DS at the same time.

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