E3 2003 | Miyamoto: Interview Part 2

Paul Davies
What do you think is the biggest news in this year's E3?

Miyamoto:
Well actually I haven't seen the showfloor at all this year so I don't know what kind of big news is coming out of other companies. For me I think the biggest news right now is connectivity. One of my biggest worries before the show was if people would come and see our connectivity titles, and see that some of them have slightly dated graphics - particularly the SNES version of Zelda: Link to the Past on the Four Swords game - and look at that and be disappointed. But from what I've seen of our stand people are having a lot of fun playing it so I feel somewhat relieved.

Paul Davies
Recently we've seen the GBA being mainly a platform for re-releases of old games, even if they're tweaked and improved. How is Nintendo planning on finding ways to bring games to the GBA that are more original and less retro?

Miyamoto:
I think we've put out quite a number of rather original titles. The most recent and I think the best example of all of them would be Wario Ware, which we're releasing soon in the US and Europe. I think on the showfloor you'll also be able to see a game called Mario and Luigi RPG, which is a brand-new title with brand-new ideas to it. The Golden Sun series has been brand-new on Game Boy Advance, and has done quite well. We're getting to the point where there's not a lot left from the SNES era for us to convert to the GBA anyway, and you're going to be seeing a lot more original titles and a lot more innovation with connectivity I think.

Paul Davies
About Mario Kart now. At the start of the project, what did the designers decide they wanted to do - which elements did they want to keep and which did they want to most change, and why?

Miyamoto:
We had a lot of long discussions about what to do with Mario Kart early on, and what we decided was that we didn't really need to change the game because in its simplicity it has some very strong gameplay that's a lot of fun. So it was really about finding a way to keep that simplicity and move forward.

Paul Davies
But for example, they don't drive actual Karts any more

Miyamoto:
(laughs) Well yeah, that's true!

Paul Davies
For me that was the real cool thing about Mario Kart was that, you know, Donkey Kong was really oversized and he had to squeeze into his little Kart. What drove the decision to put them all in crazy looking wagons?

Miyamoto:
The nice thing about Mario Kart is that it's a game where the gameplay is so simple that anybody can play it - kids, teenagers, adults, grandparents - so what we wanted to do was try and keep those elements and at the same time make the game look more fun and more exciting, by putting
in some of these wacky cars and having fun things going by in the environments. Those are things we could easily do with the GameCube power, so we wanted to take advantage of that and see how we could make the game not only fun to play but also fun to watch as well.

Paul Davies
When GameCube launched, one of Nintendo's aims was to try to reach a wider audience - adults especially, but most of the games are still focussed on children. Do you think that the objective of reaching a wider audience was fulfilled?

Miyamoto:
First off I think you might be mistaken on the idea that games are just focused on children, and if you look at the GameCube software line-up there's well over a hundred titles that have been released and overall I think there are a lot of games that are not all focused on children.

There are a lot of games that have a very broad appeal. So people talk about all these games but they're only looking at the ones that have sold well, and that have drawn a lot of attention, and they're not looking at the entire catalogue.

For us we think it's far more important to focus on making good games that sell well, and over time. If you look back at what we've done in the past, Nintendo has a unique strength in that it is very good at making games that kids enjoy. But these are also games that everyone can enjoy, and I think that with our partnerships and by focussing effort on our development you're going to see that there are going to be a lot of games that are going to appeal to people of all ages.

We have Medal of Honor on GameCube, we've got Resident Evil on GameCube, we've got the Metal Gear Solid game, Twin Snakes, which I think you're going to find is extremely highly polished and is a very cool looking game. Star Wars, Splinter Cell... I could keep going... [laughs]. The list is there! Sometimes I wonder if people haven't been caught up by Sony's strategic plan and they're not writing about the titles for GameCube that are out there that appeal to all ages. [laughs] I wish people would write more about them; I hope you all will because there's a lot of games out there for GameCube that do appeal to adults.

Paul Davies
What do you consider are the differences between the Japanese and the two Western markets, especially regarding consumer behaviour?

Miyamoto:
We don't really intentionally pay a lot of attention to the differences between the markets - some of them are obvious, like first-person shooters don't sell well in Japan, and if you make games that are very complicated and very deep then there's a core audience in America that welcomes games like that. But its not really something that we take into consideration all that much. In particular, my games don't really distinguish between differences among countries. One game I was really worried about was Animal Crossing and how well that would translate but it's sold quite well in the US.

Paul Davies
Why hasn't that come out in Europe?

Miyamoto:
Localising that game for Europe would be extremely difficult [laughs]. Every country in Europe has different events and different holidays in their calendar. If Europe would be happy with the events in the American game then there might be some possibility in doing that. Would that be okay with people in England? [laughs] Maybe we'll do it!

Paul Davies
Do you have any retirement plans? How long are you going to keep going? Some people just want to stop and spend time with their families!

Miyamoto:
There was a time when I thought that maybe if my games completely stopped selling then I might retire, but actually at Nintendo now we've got a lot of young, talented game designers. Maybe once I'm able to train them I'll get to a point where I feel like I can pass the torch on and let them get on with things on their own without me watching over them. Maybe that
's the day that I'll retire [laughs].

Paul Davies
If you left the company what kind of legacy would you like to leave?

Miyamoto:
I've been working with a lot of my directors and designers for many years now, and we always talk about my philosophies on creativity and creating new ideas and things like that. In that sense I think there isn't anything particular I would like to focus on trying to create as a legacy... So long as there's still something I can pass on to them that I think will be positive in terms of the products that we're putting out, it would still be too early for me to retire. If on the other hand I get to point where my input is no longer of any use then I guess that's when I've overstayed my welcome!

Paul Davies
In the last couple of years there have been a lot of changes in gaming, because of new technologies, new ideas, new possibilities. For you personally, which era was more exciting - the first days of gaming, or the present time, and what are your hopes for the future?

Miyamoto:
I don't think I could specify an era because, particularly for me, it's all been fun from the start up until now. It's funny that you mention the technological advances because I think we've seen technology become about ten times faster than I ever expected it would have back when I first started making games. Compared to back then it almost feels like we've got so much technology that we can't use it all up! I think that game designers, even including myself, we've almost been helped along too much by these advances in technology.

Also I think that because of the technology we have, we can do almost anything in creating these incredibly realistic worlds. A lot of game designers spend so much time focusing on doing that, that they're failing to do what they should be doing as game designers, which is creating new gameplay.

I think if game designers don't focus on which aspect of the technology they want to use, and take advantage of it to bring their creativity to games, and instead they focus on doing everything the technology allows, all that's going to do is use up their energy and lead to games that are less innovative and less creative.

Paul Davies
Nintendo's policy of outsourcing games has paid off pretty well - Toshiro Nagoshi's F-Zero looks fantastic, I think Star Fox needs some polishing but I trust Namco will do a good job. Are there any other franchises that you will entrust to your partners?

Miyamoto:
When we take our franchises and we let others develop games for them we're really not doing it on a company to company basis, where we go to one company and make a contract for them to do a game for us. Instead I find individuals, individual game creators who I feel I can entrust our franchises to.

Mr. Nagoshi [of Sega] was someone I felt I could really entrust the F-Zero franchise to, and also Capcom's Mr. Okamoto, who we've entrusted some of the Game Boy Zelda games to. With Namco, there are some talented individuals that we've entrusted Link and Star Fox to. Really it's not so much about getting other companies to make these games for us so much as it is trusting other developers to take our franchises in new directions - particularly these creative game directors. In the future I think that if we find more of these creative individuals who I feel I can entrust more of our franchises too then we'll probably continue to do that.

Paul Davies
Are there any other developers you would like to entrust some of your franchises too right now? Do you have someone in mind?

Miyamoto:
It's funny that you ask me that because I was asked the same question yesterday, to try to name somebody, and unfortunately while there are definitely people out there who I would like to work with I can't really name them right now.

Lately I've been meeting and talking
with a lot of very artistic people, and working with them on small, unique projects and giving them support and helping to provide resources for them, and I think that probably next year or the year after we'll probably see the fruits of some of those projects as well.

Paul Davies
What do you think are the biggest problems in gaming? Do you see any?

Miyamoto:
It's hard to say there's really one major problem but I guess that the fact that we're seeing that the overall number of software sales seems to be declining is an issue. I think we've reached an era that's almost a dream come true for gamers because they're able to buy these high powered games console - for some people at less than cost - which is something that we didn't do in the past.

It's obviously not good for the companies that are doing it because they're bleeding money and it's going to raise questions as to whether or not they can survive as a business in the industry doing that, but obviously for consumers that's a good thing. Another big issue is that when companies try to create these vast games that consumers really want, or if they try and use every last bit of technology to create really incredible games, the development cost is going to be so high for a game like that that they'll never be able to recoup it from sales. That's another major issue that's facing the industry.

Paul Davies
Irrelevant of Nintendo's strategy, if you were given the opportunity to create and release your games on other platforms would you be willing to go for it or would you stick with the Nintendo platforms?

Miyamoto:
When we develop our own hardware it gives me the freedom to do with that hardware what I want, to give me the capability to create the games that I want. If a time came where, for whatever reason, we couldn't survive doing that, then we'd probably have to think about moving into a multi-platform strategy, but I don't really see any point in even considering that at this point in time!

Looking at the other hardware that's out there right now, there isn't anything I can do on that hardware that I can't do on the GameCube, so I don't see any point in even considering trying to develop for those systems.