Miyamoto Message Board older than one year ago

This comes once again from the GameSpot interview...

GameSpot: Do you think Nintendo is putting its best foot forward, creatively, with Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon and Pikmin 3? What aspects of those games can you point to and call "uniquely Nintendo."

Miyamoto: Well, of course, when it comes to what Nintendo does, we create both hardware and software and so the software uniqueness in particular tends to rely on the uniqueness of the hardware. So with Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon, one thing that's particularly unique about that game is the way that it relies on the bottom screen--the touchscreen--for the map. And the ability to play with that map and how you use it to explore the mansion adds a lot to the uniqueness to the game, compared to the previous version. In the case of Pikmin 3, we've taken an approach with that game where we really want to take what made the original Pikmin game unique and really simply go deeper with that experience.

And so what we've done is by taking advantage of the GamePad--the second screen there--and the HD graphics that are capable with Wii U and the higher processor--we've really been able to take that original Pikmin experience and do something that is much deeper and more fleshed out this time around. I think the other advantage that we have is the attention that we pay to interface. For example, Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon, that's a game that uses really almost all of the buttons on the 3DS.

But the way that we introduce that to people; you start off with just a couple of actions and gradually you learn the different actions of the game over the course of the game. By the end of the game, you feel like you've gotten very good and you're then using all these different actions to battle the ghosts and solve the puzzles. And so it adds a great deal of depth and growth for the player through that experience. Similarly, with Pikmin 3, really where we've put the energy is on improving that interface for the player. By taking advantage of the gyro functionality, we feel that we've managed to give the player a much easier route to achieving the things they want to achieve in the game through that control interfaces and so what that does is it really lets them get in a take advantage of the strategic elements of that game.

This comes from a GameSpot interview...

GameSpot: Given that many of the games you're working on now are new entries in existing series, do you feel creatively satisfied?

Miyamoto: I think from the outside, if you look at it, it certainly appears that all we're doing is making sequels to the main franchises. But in recent years, I've worked on projects like Wii Fit, and other smaller projects like the Louvre museum guide that we did for Nintendo 3DS. And so, amongst all of the sequels that we do, certainly I have other projects that I'm working on that I'm having a lot of fun with. So I'm definitely creatively satisfied, but even when it comes to how we approach creating sequels for our mainline franchises, there's a great deal of research and development that goes into that and we've got a team that's focused on how we can continue to evolve those franchises.

Coming from a GameSpot interview...

“This year I’m past 60; I’m going to be turning 61 this year. So for me to not be thinking about retirement would be strange, but in fact, the number of projects I’m involved in--and the volume of my work--hasn’t changed at all.

Instead, what we’re doing internally is, on the assumption that there may someday be a time when I’m no longer there, and in order for the company to prepare for that, what I’m doing is pretending like I’m not working on half the projects that I would normally be working on to try to get the younger staff to be more involved.

And this actually has nothing to do with any kind of retirement planning or anything of that sort, it’s really more of simply the fact that people have a tendency, certainly when you’re in an organizational structure, they have a tendency to always look to the person that gives them direction. And really, for a long time I’ve been thinking that we need to try to break that structure down so that the individual producers that I’m working with are really taking responsibility for the projects that they’re working on.

And as I like to say, I try to duck out of the way, so that instead of them looking at me, they’re looking at the consumer and trying to develop their games with the consumer in mind rather than me in mind. So it’s really more of looking at this as sort of an opportunity to really try to help develop them and bring them up.” - Shigeru Miyamoto

There will indeed be a day when Miyamoto leaves the company. We're not at that point yet. It's clear that he's aiming to make a Nintendo that can survive and thrive without his input. When that retirement does happen, it's going to be a very interesting (and scary) time at the Big N.

The following Miyamoto excerpts come from an interview with Polygon...

On utilizing NFC on Wii U...

"With NFC, that's a feature that everyone that owns a Wii U can take advantage of. So that's what we're putting our priorities right now. We're hoping that in the near future we'll be able to show you something that will take advantage of the NFC on Wii U and people will be able to enjoy that."

On supporting two GamePads...

"With regards to the two GamePads functionality, from a gaming system standpoint we are developing games that will have that capability. In the future, perhaps when we get closer to something that, an environment where everybody or a large majority of people would have two GamePads, that might be a time where we look at how we can leverage a system of that nature."

On saving their NFC project and other announcements for E3...

"It used to be that we would save many of our announcements for E3 and we would announce them at the show, but what we've seen in the recent years is that there are a number of different ways and a number of different times when we have more opportunity to make those announcements. So I can't today make any promises of what we're going to do at E3, but I think, this in particular is going to be a year where we're seeing more regular announcements from Nintendo about what's coming and that someplace within the announcements that we're making, hopefully we'll have something to share about NFC.

But as I think Mr. Iwata has been saying lately, where we do see a tremendous value in E3 is it's a place where people can come and they can actually get their hands on and try the software we've been talking about, so I think that's what people can look forward to at E3."

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Are consoles a thing of the past? What does the Big N think of cloud gaming? Read on for the full scoop!

Miyamoto:

Lighting is an inevitable factor to make use of high-definition images. We did not actively use technologies to render high-end graphics in real time for software development for Wii and previous consoles. Therefore, although the name "Wii" was handed down from Wii to Wii U, we needed to hold many workshops to learn about such technologies. We already went through this initial learning phase and are now tackling how to take full advantage of high-definition graphics. In this sense, retraining our developers used to be a great hurdle. Thank you for appreciating the video we disclosed last May. All of our development team would be glad to hear that. (Iwata: I am sure the graphics are now much better.) We really enjoy creating images that are so lifelike that it is as if Pikmin were actually living there. We think Pikmin is suitable for computer graphics. At the last E3 show, we showed video footage of Pikmin wandering around me in my room backstage and then I actually appeared on stage with them. We would like more people to experience videos featuring Pikmin. In this effort, when you visit movie theaters operated by a movie chain, TOHO Cinemas, you will see Pikmin with the logo of TOHO Cinemas before a movie starts. Also, when you see a 3D movie there, you will see Pikmin and a monster called Bulborb racing around in a demo video to urge you to wear 3D glasses. I hope you will go to see it and look forward to the game which features Pikmin.

(Questioner: Is the current development structure suitable for the new architecture?)

Miyamoto:

We have not specifically changed it. We have just put the right development staff members in the right place to raise the level of each development phase. The other point is that many of our third-party software developers have been dedicated to technologies like shaders. As Wii U is designed to bring out their real strengths, there have recently been more cases where we develop something with their help. It has been more convenient for us to work together with them because they have been able to more smoothly utilize their know-how for development for Wii U.

Iwata:

I may add that each game console has its own unique qualities, and developers must go through a trial and error phase to acquire the knack of taking full advantage of them. This time does not come until a final version of the hardware and development tools for the version have been made available and then a base for software development has been established. For Wii U, such a time finally came in the latter half of last year. In this sense, we could not avoid the trial and error stage to create games which take full advantage of the hardware. I think that this is true for third-party software developers as well as Nintendo’s. The home consoles of other companies are six or seven years old and software developers have sufficiently studied them and know how to take full advantage of them well. As Wii U is new to them, some developers have already acquired the knack and made good use of its features and others have not. You might see this gap among the games that are currently available. However, we are not much concerned about this problem because time will eventually solve it. Actually, we believe that our in-house development teams have almost reached the next stage. It is not true that we are deadlocked with a lot of trouble in our development. Otherwise, we could not aim for 100 billion yen or more in operating profit for the next fiscal year. Here, I would like Mr. Takeda to tell you about the architecture of the Wii U hardware.

Genyo Takeda (Senior Managing Director, General Manager of Integrated Research and Development Division):

I don’t want to talk about anything too technical, but in my view, Wii U is a console with low power consumption and has fairly high performance. Regarding your comment that we focus on the GPU and that the CPU is a little poor, we have a different view. It depends on how to evaluate a processing unit. In terms of die size (area a chip occupies), the GPU certainly occupies a much larger space than the CPU. As you can see CPUs used for the latest PCs and servers, however, it is usual for current CPUs that the logic part for actual calculations is really small and that the cache memory called SRAM around it covers a large area. From this angle, we don’t think that the performance of the Wii U’s CPU is worse than that of the GPU. In other words, we have taken a so-called "memory-intensified" design approach for the Wii U hardware. It is no use saying much about hardware which should remain in the background in our entertainment offerings, but at least we think that Wii U performs pretty well.

In regard to GPUs, they are so advanced that other companies in the video game market seem to be on the same path. Developers have also been accustomed to programmable shaders to create games. In this sense, we think that the entire industry, including Nintendo, has had less trouble in this field than in the time when shaders were emerging.

Iwata:


These charts tell you about the Japanese user demography of "Animal Crossing: Wild World" for Nintendo DS released seven years ago and the relatively new "Animal Crossing: New Leaf" for Nintendo 3DS. It is little use making a simple comparison due to the difference in the time from their respective releases, but we would like you to see the user difference through the data of Club Nintendo registrants for these games. In some age groups there are many Club Nintendo members and not in others. The blue circle indicates the position of the average number of Club Nintendo members. Then the portion outside the blue circle means there are more registrants than the Club Nintendo average, while the inner portion represents the number of registrants below average. In these cobweb charts, the right half of the cobweb chart represents male users from age six at the top to over 45 at the bottom and the left stands for females.

The graph on the left shows "Animal Crossing: Wild World" for Nintendo DS released quite some time ago. As it had been very popular among children and has finally sold more than five million copies, the portions representing users aged 12 and under in particular spread outward. You will also notice the huge presence of the female registrants. Compared to this game, you can see from the graph for "Animal Crossing: New Leaf" for Nintendo 3DS just after its launch that it is more popular among girls than boys and is popular among adult women. In addition, the portion showing both male and female registrants aged 19 to 24 protrudes outward sharply, which is not the case for the Nintendo DS software. "Animal Crossing: New Leaf" appeared seven years after the release of "Animal Crossing: Wild World" and 19-year-old people were 12-year-olds seven years ago. We think that those who enjoyed "Animal Crossing: Wild World" seven years ago were probably the first consumers to buy "Animal Crossing: New Leaf." In this sense, there are many consumers who understand the attractions of the Animal Crossing series through playing the Nintendo DS version, and we were able to communicate the improvements in this Nintendo 3DS version to them. Another factor is that consumers are more likely to see what their friends are interested in now through social media than when we released the Nintendo DS version. There are some users who became interested in "Animal Crossing: New Leaf" and bought it because their Twitter timelines were filled with other people's tweets about it. Also, we released the "Animal Crossing: New Leaf Direct" video (Japanese only), in which our developers, negatively speaking, rambled on about this game for more than 45 minutes, and it has attracted no less than 1.6 million views on YouTube and what's more, the most popular way to see it was from smartphones. We think that this result was caused by the changes in information channels.


One more thing to mention is that "Animal Crossing: New Leaf" has increased the number of female users of Nintendo 3DS. This chart shows changes in the weekly trends of the female ratio of Club Nintendo registrants since the launch of Nintendo 3DS XL and week 16 was when "Animal Crossing: New Leaf" was launched. Although the male-female ratio of users of most Nintendo platforms is more or less equal in the long run, Club Nintendo in which you can earn points for special gifts like a mileage service has relatively more male registrants, about 60 percent. The female user ratio in week 16 was 50 percent, but taking into consideration the trend of registrants in Club Nintendo, the actual female ratio could reach two thirds of the total users. As the female ratio remains higher than before the launch of "Animal Crossing: New Leaf," we can definitely say that this game has increased the number of female users of Nintendo 3DS.


The graph on the left shows the overall Club Nintendo registrants and the right one indicates those who registered "Animal Crossing: New Leaf" and the Nintendo 3DS hardware at the same time. In the graph on the right, female users aged 19 to 44 account for an extremely large portion of those who bought Nintendo 3DS to play "Animal Crossing: New Leaf." This single game has increased the number of our consumers and has given momentum to the entire platform.

You mentioned that the reception of "Animal Crossing: Wild World" was not so good overseas. The sales of this game have reached no less than five million copies overseas. There are few companies whose result of selling more than five million copies of a product is considered not up to scratch. It is true that the sales figure overseas, meaning in the U.S. and Europe, is relatively small compared to the fact that the number of sales has surpassed five million copies only in Japan, but there are already some core fans of the Animal Crossing series overseas too. When we announced "Animal Crossing: New Leaf" through our Japanese Nintendo Direct presentation, many consumers worldwide viewed it on the Internet and we received a lot of requests from overseas consumers who wanted to play it as soon as possible. We would like to first promote the attractions of this game to such a core fan base.

By observing what has happened surrounding "Animal Crossing: New Leaf," we have been able to analyze how the relevant information spread in Japan and how so many people were willing to participate in these communications. Before we released "Brain Age" for Nintendo DS overseas, we promoted it there in reference to how it had become popular among people here in Japan. As we did for "Brain Age," we would like to have overseas consumers understand this game with the help of our knowledge of what happened to this game in Japan and what kinds of information channels were suitable for it. When it happens, we will have more opportunities to have more people abroad accept the Animal Crossing series. Some might be concerned about whether the graphics used for this series will appeal to consumers overseas, but I think we have the odds in our favor.

As for "asymmetric gameplay" of Wii U, whether the name is good or not is different from the reputation of "Nintendo Land" as the representative work incorporating such gameplay. We know some criticized the name "asymmetric gameplay" as debatable and not intuitive, and we have reflected upon its actual explicitness to consumers. On the other hand, we don’t think that asymmetric gameplay itself lacks in appeal because we have received a lot of comments that the gameplay of "Nintendo Land" is in practice interesting. In short, we unfortunately have not overcome the hurdle to come up with the best words to make people easily understand the value of such gameplay. As "Nintendo Land" is to be a longtime seller during the lifespan of Wii U, we would like to somehow invent a way to have many people understand the value of "Nintendo Land" and the appeal of gameplay with both Wii U GamePad and a TV screen. Now I would like Mr. Miyamoto to say something about "Pikmin 3."

Miyamoto:

Please let me go back to "Animal Crossing: New Leaf." In playing a game, I myself really value how much I can identify with it. In addition to the feature that you are appointed as the mayor of the village in the beginning, we implemented more elements you would identify with than its earlier series such as the conversations with animals in this game. I believe that such elements will be accepted worldwide, overcoming the barriers of nationality and trends. Although it is important how to promote this game through Twitter and other media, the basic stance as a developer is, first of all, to localize this game carefully. We have a lot of issues to consider, including how Japanese puns should be translated, for example why a white turnip can be traded like a stock.

With regard to "Pikmin 3" for Wii U, I don’t want to be misconceived, but the biggest draw of this game is the higher-resolution images through the high-definition graphics. You can even see Pikmin’s gestures with the graphics. We are not going to put asymmetric gameplay in a game if it is unnecessary. In this game, you can see the entire map on Wii U GamePad. The two screens of the TV and Wii U GamePad will let you see what you are doing at any time during your gameplay, which alone is a great evolution for a strategy game. As a side note, you can play this game only with Wii U GamePad. If it is hard to imagine what it will be like, maybe you can recall the visuals of the original "Pikmin" for Nintendo GameCube and imagine how you can play it with the smaller but more detailed screen in your hands. The two control sticks of Wii U GamePad will let you play this game more comfortably and, with a TV screen, the gyro sensor inside Wii Remote Plus will further help your gameplay. Wii U GamePad will give you style variations of playing this game and playing only with Wii U GamePad might be a good experience for you. I hope you will like this game.

Iwata:

The term "cloud gaming" is one of the words we have lately heard so often, but I would like people to understand that there are certain things that cloud gaming cannot achieve. A cloud is an attempt to process information online on a server, as opposed to doing so on individual machines in the hands of the users. What this implies is, since the time to transmit data over an Internet connection is never negligible, there is always some latency before you receive the result of your input. Of course, there are types of games on which delays have no effect. In such instances, it may perhaps make sense to have an input means as well as the ability to display images at hand and let all the information be processed on a server. On the other hand, for some highly interactive games, action games in particular, the time required to reflect the push of a button on the screen is critical and the frame rate (the number of times a screen can be updated in a given second) determines the fluidity of the movements. This means that there are some types of games that can be put on the Internet and others that cannot. By the laws of physics, it always takes some time to transmit data, and given the current level of Internet technology, there is bound to be some latency during the processes of a server receiving data, producing images instantly and sending them back. There are many things that cloud gaming cannot do by design, but this fact has not been communicated well to the public, and I find it strange that many people claim that cloud gaming is the future.

In this sense, what we should be discussing is not cloud gaming but whether dedicated gaming platforms will eventually die out and whether handheld gaming devices and home consoles will one day be unified. Naturally, our stance is that dedicated gaming platforms will not die out and we are determined to create a future where they will not. In terms of our platform integration, as I explained to you a short while ago, we are not saying that we are planning to integrate our platforms into one. What we are saying is that we would like to integrate software development methods, operating systems, and built-in software and software assets for each platform so that we can use them across different machines. This means that if we manage to integrate our platforms successfully, we may in fact be able to make more platforms. At the moment, we only have our current handheld devices and home consoles because if we tried to make more platforms, our development resources would be spread too thinly. The more we can share software across different platforms, the more development resources will be left for something else. Platform integration does not mean creating one type of platform, but the point is that the united method of software development will enable us to share our most precious software assets across different hardware. It is natural that there will be more things that battery-run devices can do thanks to technological advances and game consoles will become more powerful. However, if we try to linearly pursue this direction, software development will become so complicated that we will eventually face a situation where cost recovery becomes a serious issue. Therefore we feel that we are nearing a saturation point in terms of simply improving performance or enhancing graphics. What is far more important for the future of video games is whether we can make new propositions in other aspects and create games out of something that people never expected to see in the form of a game.

Miyamoto:

As Mr. Iwata just explained, in addition to video game software developers who create actual gameplay, we have staff members who, for example, create development environments, prepare libraries for licensees and make preparations to successfully implement a new CPU. Our platforms after Nintendo DS and Wii have various standard applications with which you can do a lot of things once you buy them. Recently we have found ourselves having more work in development of such preinstalled applications, in addition to the fact that we need more time to develop video game applications. As Wii’s design concept was similar to that of Nintendo GameCube, software developers were able to focus on creating new types of game software applications. On the other hand, when we use a new CPU or a new development environment as we did for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U, it takes a certain amount of time before we can start actual development of games. The integration of our hardware divisions is for the purpose of getting our core developers to work on creating actual entertainment applications, and we are not trying to develop a unified platform. Speaking of hardware, we started making various efforts to expand our user base mainly with Nintendo DS several years ago. Around that time mobile phones were considered as our competitors, but the gameplay with them was not so comfortable and their architecture was very complicated and too varied. We tried various approaches with Nintendo DS to get people who didn’t play video games to understand and enjoy interactive technologies. In the end, it was a variety of software titles that we offered for Nintendo DS which increased the number of people who got accustomed to something interactive. The fact of the matter is that the technologies included in smartphones have progressed so much that they can now do what mobile phones couldn’t do in that arena previously. Therefore, what Nintendo should do this time is create something that is more fun to play on our devices. The sales of "Animal Crossing: New Leaf" we released last year in Japan have already assured us that, as long as we create software that meets certain demands from the consumers, such as a game title they really want to play by any means and they want to do so without worrying about the battery life of their handheld devices, they will be willing to purchase it. We think that this title has sales potential for the overseas markets and we are now investigating how best to promote it.

Moving on to our home console business, I think there are only a handful of machines on the market that really try to answer the question of how best to use the TV screen in the living room. It seems that, in developing powerful video game consoles, the TV screen in the living room is just considered as an output device which could be replaced by a computer monitor. We, on the other hand, believe that our mission with Wii U is to make the TV sets in the living rooms more convenient and diverse in people’s daily lives. In this sense, we feel that we managed to create a very cost-efficient machine. I believe that handheld devices and home consoles will continue to coexist for the time being because they have different goals.

Satoru Iwata (President):

The time frame I have in mind within which to enrich our software lineup with titles that communicate better the true appeal of our hardware is not an excessively long one. Except for "Wii Street U powered by Google," which I demonstrated to you a while ago, and other titles already announced, a month or two is certainly not adequate to release a large number of titles, but we are hoping to be able to communicate to our consumers the new value of our hardware with titles that we are going to launch from approximately the second half of the calendar year toward the end. Our results so far have indicated to a certain degree that it is rather difficult to let the hardware communicate its value by itself unless we focus on this aspect and become more creative in our messaging. However, this is not to say that our existing software has been inadequate in this regard and we are certainly not thinking of a long-term scale to achieve this. In addition, I believe that we will be able to launch new software within this year that we have not yet announced at this point.

Shigeru Miyamoto (Senior Managing Director, General Manager of Entertainment Analysis and Development Division):

Wii U has a lot of attractive features, but it requires a certain amount of time for people to understand them. A common practice in the entertainment industry is to offer a new proposition whose appeal can instantly be understood, enabling it to be popularized quickly. Nevertheless, while it is perhaps strange for Nintendo to say the opposite, our belief in designing this hardware was to create a standard machine full of convenience for every living room. We would have liked to create new entertainment that instantly communicated its value to the public, but we could not. However, I am confident that we did manage to develop software that, once people have played it, does communicate its value very well. We have not yet launched many titles, but Nintendo has been striving to sell its software for as long as three years in an industry where a typical software title has only a few weeks of product life. In this sense, we are confident that even our existing ideas are attractive enough to draw people to our hardware. During development, I found myself becoming increasingly accustomed to using two screens, and now I feel compelled to take a look at the screen in my hands even if that is not necessary. While it will take more time to give shape to our new propositions that take advantage of being able to use two screens, we have various ideas already. In terms of our research and development resources, as we need more staff in response to the high performance of this hardware, we are working to recruit more people, including people from outside the company. Apart from these issues, we are working hard without becoming worried about whether we are out of ideas or the system will be accepted into people's living rooms. It seems to me that we have a larger challenge in how to have many people understand the value of this hardware through our promotional activities.

Iwata:

Speaking from personal experience as a Wii U user, Wii U GamePad clearly created more incentives for me to switch on the system at home. I am increasingly seeing the impact of the system becoming independent of the TV, but it was not until I took it home with me and it started to become part of my daily life that I could talk about it as an actual experience. In this sense, I fully realized the value of the system only after it was launched. I believe that when we enrich the software lineup of Wii U, it will be easier to understand the advances in entertainment that are possible with this hardware system, and as more software is released, the advantages of its unique configuration will become more apparent. Please look forward to our progress with Wii U in the near future.

Q. Cloud gaming is becomming popular. What about a unified platform?

Iwata: there are things you can do with cloud gaming and there are things you cant do. We dont agree that cloud gaming is the future and we are trying to work hard on a future where gaming only consoles are not gone. Unified platforms are for us not platforms that are one but rather platforms that have the same development architecture. This also means that there could be more platforms.

Miyamoto: We needed to create new development environments for wiiu and 3ds unlike wii which reused the gamecube architecture. We are unifying our development teams to accomodate this challenge and minimize the losses while preparing the shift. I think handhelds and consoles will coexist as the aim is different.

#Pikmin3 off-TV play can be thought of as GameCube-style gameplay in your hand. Wii Remote Plus' gyro sensor can be used on TV. I think that #Pikmin3 off-TV play is the freshest gameplay experience. Please look forward to it.
Miyamoto also detailed a collaboration that'll show Pikmin advertising in certain cinemas.

Pikmin, Bulbear to appear w/ Toho Cinemas logo before movie screenings. They'll be shown in 3D for 3D movies.

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Q. Isnt the WiiU architecture too much focused on the GPU?

Miyamoto : For High End graphics there is a hurdle, since we have to reeducate our people. The development itself hasnt changed but we are recruiting specialists that can become core members in each specialized area. External Developers are used to shader techniques and we are collaborating a lot with external companies nowadays so we have a very good development structure.

Iwata: Every gaming hardware has its specialties. There is a timing of hit and miss before the functions can be used fully. We were not able to provide development kits that get out all the power of wiiu until mid of last year. With other gaming consoles firms had 6 to 7 years to experiment but our console has a different balance so it is easy to see who has adapted and who hasnt. However this is something time will heal so we are not too worried.

Takeda : WiiU is a machine that has a lot of performance compared to its power consumption. The GPU is definitely more pronounced than the CPU . There are people saying that the CPU is weak but that is not true. It is a trendl that the cash memory is whats getting biggrr with CPUs not the processing power. i do not think at the CPu is underpowered. Its just a design where the memory is more stressed.

Iwata : I hear a lot of people saying that Nintendoland was great, so we think asymmetrical gaming is not a bad thing. However it is hard to get the message out, that this is a fun way to play.

Miyamoto: Pikmin 3s greatest charm is to look at the Pikmin in HD. I think it is a great strategy game that has a constant minimap displayed on the gamepad. There is also OffTV play.

Q. What is the timeframe of the new software you were mentioning? What about the development structure?

Iwata : we are not thinking about a long timeframe. We are thinking about Mid year up to End of the year 2013. We also have games that are slated for end of the year that we havent mentioned yet.

Miyamoto : It takes time to understand the charm of Wii U. We are currently offering a few titles but we are aiming for games that sell steadily for the next 3 years not for games that stop selling after a few weeks. We have a lot of ideas for 2 screen play. We definitely need more employees internally and externally so we are strengthening our development teams.

"That's actually something that all the staff members had to debate over when we were discussing what kind of direction we should take for Pikmin 3. First of all by looking at Pikmin 1 we noticed that it wasn't a very easy game for people to play, and from time to time they had to feel some stress. Our main aim in Pikmin 2 was to get rid of any stress as much as possible, so that it would be very user-friendly. Well, I myself couldn't agree with that direction perfectly. That kind of nature of Pikmin 1 was exactly what I wanted to reproduce and I was actually intentionally doing so, so that Pikmin 1 could be a strategic game. When we started creating Pikmin 3 I gathered the main members who worked on Pikmin 2 and talked about how I thought it was important to get back to the basics of Pikmin 1. Or I should say that half of my job at that time wasn't just to talk, but rather to persuade them to understand what I intended to do and to agree to my idea." - Shigeru Miyamoto

I loved having my own schedule in Pikmin 2. Explore all day, head up into space when night came. I really don't want to see a time limit return for the 3rd game, but it certainly looks like things are headed that way.

Miyamoto has spoken about the direction Pikmin 3 is taking. It has more in common with the first in the series.

A portion of a GamesMaster interview with Shigeru Miyamoto...

GM: How important is online gaming for you as a creator and for the Wii U as a console?

SM: A Nintendo have been trying to raise the net connection ratio for the recent hardware we launched and Wii U is going to be the very first machine we launch with the premise that it will always be connected to the internet. I'm always trying to remind myself and my staff members how important it isfor us not to solely depend upon the kind of fun that stems out of competition. First and foremost, the games we are creating must be final, just final. We always have to make it a point that, even when you aren't competing with other players, the game itself must be fun to play.

It's actually a kind of simple transition. We are simply taking that fun nature of the local competition to the one which is competed by taking advantage of the internet. So my plan is a kind of extension from the local competition.

GM: What do you see yourself working on in five years time?

SM: Well, actually it's impossible for anybody to foresee what's going to happen in the long run, as long as we are talking about digital entertainment.

If somebody comes up with a great idea inthe future or if somebody comes up with a great invention then the whole entertainment picture shall be changed drastically so it's not going to be possible for anybody to make a long-term focus.

So rather than try to do that, and try to see what's going to happen in five years time from today, what's important is to look around and aggressively understand and consume emerging technologies. But at the same time I'm not trying to forget about what happened in the past, what kind of know-how and experiences I personally have so far.

GM: You've said before how you foresee your role at Nintendo changing...

SM: A I think above all the biggest thing for me personally is how I can change myself. After all I'm 60! It's not going to be humanly possible for me to work on everything with the same hardship I used to pour into [it] when I was much younger than today! But the fact of the matter is I am able to assign a lot of my responsibilities to younger [staff] members, especially people in their 40s today at the company.

GM: Is that already happening to some extent? What will you use your free time for?

When we looked at the titles for the Wii U at launch I was able to assign most of the responsibility to these young creators and they were able to finalise these titles. Now I have to take care of fewer and fewer details and responsibilities of the games, I'll be able to focus my attention and energies into creating something brand new.

GM: What continues to inspire you?

SM: I can take a look around at anything which is happening around me or around the world and sometimes I can notice that for this particular thing, even though it is one of the very ordinary things surrounding us, if we can apply an interactive nature or game technology to that, it's going to be something very unique. That's going to be something that people will enjoy.

In the case of the Nintendo DS, you can bring the Nintendo DS anywhere, that's why I was able to think in terms of how it could be used at the museum, for example. And in the case of Wii, Wii is supposed to be inside the house, most often in the living room where families get together, I always thought in terms of how it could expand the joy inside of the living room.

"When we developed the DS, we started from the question, ‘If we make a high spec Gameboy Advance, is it something people will want?' If you make the same sort of thing, there's no uniqueness to it. When there's nothing unique, all you get as a result is a price war." - Shigeru Miyamoto

- Yamauchi brought up the idea for a 2-screen system

"Mr. Yamauchi had no direct input in the development of the Wii U, but indirectly, you could say his idea from the DS is connected." - Satoru Iwata

"Even before the DS was born, we often heard Mr. Yamauchi say ‘Don't do the same as what's been done before' over and over." - Satoru Iwata
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"There are a variety of different ways for us to create videogames. Sometimes from the very outset we have some clear-cut goals towards which we start working. On the other hand we have cases when we don't have any kind of clear-cut image as to what kind of game it will eventually be but rather we have a very vague image of whatever we would like to establish or realise.

In the case of Pikmin 1 our original idea was how it would be nice if we would be able to see a bunch of small creatures doing something. Something like, they are protecting their own village and at the same time they are trying to grow and expand that village. Later on we added the feature so that the player character will be there. But at the beginning I thought that it wouldn't be interesting enough because in that original development mode the Pikmin were used as if [they were] weapons. To be utilised, to be shot by the player themselves." - Shigeru Miyamoto

It's amazing how one simple idea can give birth to an entire franchise. I can only imagine how some of Nintendo's other franchises got started.

“I think it is very likely. I cannot tell specifically what ideas I used to have at the time which might be realized this time around. But as you might recall, at one of the E3 shows several years ago we showcased a game of Pac-Man Versus, which was a really interesting game. Unfortunately however it was rather hard for everyone to own four GBAs at the same time.

But at that time still it was not very easy or accepted. [Now, with Wii U], it’s not just creators outside the company are finding fascinating possibilities to be able to realize a game dream come true.” - Shigeru Miyamoto

Now I'm really excited for Wii U! I loved that GBA connection, but it never got used enough. Is it time for another Four Swords?!

A 6-page interview with Miyamoto that is just waiting for us to thumb through it! If anyone can find this issue or has it on-hand, please let me know! Thanks to Jet Pilot for the heads up.

A portion of a KillScreenDaily interview with Bill Trinen...

KSD: Could you talk a little bit about that naming decision?

BT: One of the things we saw coming out of E3 was when we ran the original video on Miiverse, and when Mr. Iwata first introduced it, he described it using the term they referred to it as in development, which is the ‘Mii Wara Wara.’ With ‘wara wara’ being this [Japanese] term that suggests the milling about of people. During that video, people reacted very positively to it on social media. They thought it was something fun, something very Nintendo, uniquely Nintendo that few other companies would necessarily go with. I think it works, I like it. It’s fun.

KSD: Most people know you as your role in translating for Miyamoto during press conferences. I was curious about that relationship. Do you confer with each other about what to say, or do you just go out there and translate what he’s saying as he’s saying it? How much of a back-and-forth is it?

BT: We’ve been doing this since about 1999, which is a long time. I can’t believe how long that is. [Miyamoto] is a lot of fun because he is very free-spirited. He knows what he wants to say. We’ll work together on the script, I’ll put that into English. In that process, I may suggest changes to it, he may suggest additional changes. He’s a tinkerer. He’s a craftsman, by trade, really. It’s what he does. He always wants to make everything as good as it can be, up to the last minute. So there’s always late changes.

But the best part is when we get out on stage, and then the script really just becomes a sort of bullet-point, or a guideline. He doesn’t read off the teleprompter. And so I don’t really get to read off a teleprompter. In fact we’ve had years where he has a teleprompter in Japanese, and I have nothing. [laughs] And so I just have to listen to him.

A lot of times, if you watch closely, if you ever catch him saying something and kind of glancing over at me, that’s his way of saying, ‘That was totally off-script.’ He’s looking to see if I’ve caught it.

From the very beginning, Mario's RPG adventures have encountered hurdles courtesy of his creator. Learn more about the origins of Paper Mario: Sticker Star.

The following comments come from Miyamoto...

On how he spends his time...

"Actually, most of my working time is occupied by reading email, making phone calls and returning comments by email... I'm always trying to remind myself that even though something can be done digitally, I need to have face-to-face contact with others."

On third party Wii U support...

"It's a matter of how seriously they commit themselves. Our mission is to approach developers, and if they're willing to commit to experiences only available on Nintendo hardware, we are more willing to help. Each developer has his or her own ideas and we really encourage the differences."

Finally, we have details on how Miyamoto almost missed a royal appointment by being locked in a bathroom.

...on a recent trip to Spain, he'd been due to meet two members of the royal family, but owing to a door lock malfunction, was instead imprisoned in a hotel bathroom. Under increasing pressure to free him, someone eventually hacked down the door with a crowbar before a police escort whisked him, sirens blaring, to his royal appointment.

A portion of an MTV interview with Reggie Fils-Aime...

MTV Multiplayer: In terms of the first party games, which do you think a more important title, Nintendo Land or New Super Mario Bros. U?

Fils-Aime: That's like asking me which of my children I love the most. The games do different things. Launching with a Mario game, which is the first time that we have launched with a Mario game in years, means that for the Nintendo fan there's immediately a game to buy, and immediately a game to reconnect with the best of the Nintendo's franchises.

But, Nintendo Land, because of the range of experiences, multiplayer, single player, the different uses of the GamepPad itself, I actually think may be the better tutorial for how to experience everything that the GamePad has to offer. Because it's packed in with the Deluxe SKU it means that immediately as consumers open up that game, they’re going to have something to play.

MTV Multiplayer: As part of that, you mentioned the difference between single player and multiplayer games. A lot the Wii U games at launch have at least a multiplayer element, but have something for single player as well. Do you think that is going to happen more and more? Is the Wii U going to skew towards multiplayer, and is single player going to go away to some degree?

Fils-Aime: I think that there's going to continue to be a range of experiences. The fact of the matter is Mr. Miyamoto, for example, loves multiplayer experiences in the same room. He believes that that connection is critically important in gameplay. So, I would expect to see those types of experiences coming from Nintendo first party development for example.

Certain genres are dominated by single player, or at least single player in the same room, Call of Duty is an example. I'm pleased that we're going to see those types of experiences on the system as well.

MTV Multiplayer: At any point was there an idea of a "Reggie Asks" thrown out?

Fils-Aime: So, we have talked about it, and what I will tell you is that it's important that if we ever do a Reggie Asks that it be on a topic that makes sense. Iwata Asks works because of Mr. Iwata's background as a game developer himself, so he's able to have an informed conversation with other developers, and his own curiosity is what drives that conversation. So, certainly if there's a topic where I have passion and I have curiosity and I have an innate background in, that's probably the topic that will lead to a Reggie Asks.

Full interview here

Miyamoto on his reputation...

“I think that I have a reputation for being loud, being hard on everybody, sticking to minute detailed points. Many would maybe agree that I am a person who even at midnight fights for his own opinions.”

Iwata on Nintendo providing software for smart phones

“If you ask me, don’t you think Nintendo should sell Mario on a smartphone for 99 cents, I do not think the answer is yes. We really want to sustain the monetary value of game software at a higher level. Otherwise, we cannot make game creation a rewarding business.”

Iwata on the music industry shift to digital...

“They (Apple) have changed the mindset of the people from first purchasing the music CD to purchasing single [tracks] at the cost of just 99 cents. They’ve made people think that that’s a smarter activity. And now what’s happening is that music artists can no more get enough resources of money out of the making and selling of CD music, but rather they have to monetize in other ways, like live concerts.

They have done so so smartly that they were able to establish the image that they are the saviors of the music industry. However, the fact of the matter is they have simply transferred these resources of music and monetary value into somewhere else. And the same thing is happening in the game industry.”

Miyamoto on ideas that just aren't ready to be implemented yet...

“When you think about bad ideas, there are certainly ideas whose time has not yet come, or ideas whose technology is not quite there to realize. There are lots of ideas that I gave up on because they’re not really good ideas. But when I see something that really is a good idea, but its time maybe just hasn’t come yet I realize that’s something I need to hold on to. I don’t know if stubborn is the right word, but there’s a Japanese word, nebari — persistent — that is maybe a little better match.”

Miyamoto on other companies taking their ideas...

“We’re seeing the emulation [of our ideas] occur very quickly, which if anything tells us they know this is a good idea. What’s really important for people to understand is that we’ve had 10 years of experience and lots of trials and hardship in trying to work with the connectivity between two devices, or the kind of interface that would use two screens. And so for other people to jump into this area without the benefit of that history and those experiences, it makes me think that they don’t necessarily know everything that we have learned about working with this kind of device.”

Iwata on his respect for Miyamoto...

"I have a huge respect for Mr. Miyamoto. He knows what he’s good at and what he’s bad at. And then somewhat, in the category of what he’s not so good at, I happen to be the person who is able to deal with these issues better than he does. He is kindly trusting and following my decisions, and when it comes to the more creative arena I give him 100 percent trust.”

He moves pretty damn well for a 60 year old! Indeed, Shigeru Miyamoto is turning 60 tomorrow, or today in Japan! Let's hope he keeps going strong and bringing us some of the best games yet!

The following comments come from Shigeru Miyamoto...

On new hardware launches...

“Of course I’ve experienced a number of times how we as a company launch new hardware, and each time I have to confess I am more nervous than excited.

So far, whenever we’ve launched a new hardware platform to the market, people tended to regard us as the competition. They’d discuss how Nintendo would be able to compete with other companies by launching the new hardware. Within ourselves, we have never thought like that.. But it was inevitable that people tended to see things that way. However this time around, I think we are in a better position to be able to forecast upon our messaging, and our messaging is that we are proposing new, unique opportunities.”

On the current situation in an average house hold's living room...

“When we look around the current situation in the household, in most living rooms, even when different family members are getting together, they are all working on different things – some are working on their note PC, others are watching TV. Even when they are in the same living room, each person is doing his or her own job, irrespective of other members of the family. This time around with Wii U, each of the seemingly different activities we are doing today can be united by taking advantage of both the big TV screen and the smaller, more personalised screen on the Wii U gamepad.

And with a Wii U gamepad, TV can be an improved experience as well. For example, web browsing on a TV screen is possible today, but not convenient; with Wii U it is much easier. Above all I think the Wii U is going to be able to unite each and any family by taking advantage of the TV in a more efficient way.”

On the Wii U bringing people together

“Even though Nintendo has [always] been trying to provide the entire family with the opportunity to get together, the fact of the matter is that from time to time, when for example several family members would like to watch TV programs on the screen, Nintendo’s console hardware was regarded as the obstacle, because they could not see the TV programs they really wanted to see. But with Wii U hardware the situation is going to be completely different… [it] can provide you with the circumstance in which the console cannot be the obstacle to disturb any entertainment that any of the family wishes to enjoy in the living room.”

On Wii U changing how games are experienced/played...

“Wii U can change the entire picture surrounding how video games are played by taking advantage of the two different screens. For example it’s natural in other entertainment such as playing cards that you cannot tell what other players are doing, what cards they’re holding. Before it was not possible to reproduce this kind of enjoyable experience on video game machines. But with Wii U it is possible, not just with card games but also such traditional games as Hide and Seek, and Tag, and that’s why we are including these unique features in the gameplay in Nintendo Land. It is a good example to showcase this variety of different things that have been made possible but Wii U, especially Mario Chase and Luigi’s Ghost Mansion.”

On the poor sales of Four Swords Adventures, how today's online could expand the idea...

“Now that a lot of network technologies are evolving, games like [Zelda] Four Swords actually have great potential to evolve even further from now. Internally, we had continued debate as to the reason why Four Swords could not expand to the audience the way we really hoped it might have.

One of the dominant opinions as to the reasons why it didn’t sell was ‘Maybe people did not think that they could fully enjoy playing alone, they’d think that they’d need four players together to make the most of it.’ But I thought ‘No no, we should not think in that fashion at all. If we can really tell that the game itself is fun enough, but that there are obstacles to playing with other players, [then] we need to find out what [that obstacle] was really, and get rid of the kind of nuisances and disturbances.

The fact of the matter is that we are often asked ‘another Pikmin, another Mario, why won’t you come up with brand new ideas and franchises, et cetera, but… even though we are creating a new iteration for the existing franchise, we are always trying to make unique entertainment, and one way to do this is to take new technologies and apply that so that even the existing franchise will be able to provide you with a brand new experience.”

On how Nintendo keeps up with fans as they grow from children to adults...

“I started working on making video games approximately 30 years ago, but since then I do not feel that I have changed a lot. I am still making games that look and feel almost the same way for players. One thing that is different is that the themes I pick up have much more variety than before; other than that I think even adults who started video games 30 years ago can enjoy them as if they were 30 years younger.

From the developer’s perspective, the big difference from 30 years ago is the fact that then, it was mainly children who played with videogames, and adults could not figure out what their sons and daughters were playing. But today, these children have grown up and become parents themselves, so they can understand. So with that change in my mind, I am always trying to create video games that appeal to different generations.

Sometimes people say that ‘I have graduated from video games’. But I do not think this is an appropriate term. This unique interactive media called video games can be very conveniently integrated into your ordinary life, and my hope is that I can work on making the applications for games which can attract people and encourage them to be associated with video game technologies one way or another, so that they can even more enjoy their lives.”

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