Nintendo Wii/DS News | Aonuma & Miyamoto Talk Wii Fit, Zelda & Mario Galaxy

At last week's E3 event, the Director/Producer of the Zelda series, Eiji Aonuma, and the infamous Shigeru Miyamoto took part in a special roundtable discussion that covered the likes of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, Super Mario Galaxy and Wii Fit. Here is a quick overview of the main points:

• Aonuma said he has ideas for the next Wii Zelda, but he joked that Miyamoto initially responded, "No, you idiot" since it is too early to discuss that;
• Aonuma was asked about the possibility of a direct sequel to Twilight Princess, with 1:1 sword fighting using the Wii Remote, to which he replied "Would you like that? We're still evaluating...";
• Talking about the simplified controls for Phantom Hourglass on DS, Aonuma stated having streamlined gameplay has been effective, but Nintendo is still waiting to get feedback from Europe and the U.S. once Phantom Hourglass is released before deciding whether to make it the norm for future games;
• Aonuma was the Producer of Phantom Hourglass, rather than taking on the usual Director's role. But he worked closely with the new Director, something he may consider doing in the future again so he can create "something original" as well;

• He also mentioned how he has thought about how Link would react in a contemporary or World War II setting, but has not given much thought to how he would create a Zelda game in such a different world;
• Talking about Super Mario Galaxy, Shigeru Miyamoto said that the great thing about spherical objects is that you can make them bigger and bigger, which means that eventually running around on something so big is basically like being on a flat surface. It was confirmed that there will be very large areas included;
• When asked if Luigi is somewhere in the game, all he would say is that it is currently a secret
• Miyamoto added that up until just a few months ago, the difficulty in Galaxy was "significantly easier," but that he started making it more difficult recently to the point where he began worrying the Nintendo bigwigs in Tokyo;
• It was re-iterated that the development team is the definitely the Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat from the Tokyo office, with them working on this project since the completion of Jungle Beat! The size of the team has now gone from thirty to fifty people;
• When asked if successful casual games has distanced Miyamoto from hardcore projects, he said "You don't have to worry about that!" He added he can work on complex, larger projects at the same time as simpler ones that take only six months to complete;
• Many Third Parties are interested in Wii Fit and the Wii Balance Board, yet health facilities and medical centres are also very intrigued about the possibilities;
• Wii Fit will come to Japan first and Nintendo is working hard to see whether the Board needs adjusting for the US audience, joking that a "supersize" board would be required for Reggie Fils-Aime;
• Miyamoto's idea for Wii Fit arose as his family has become more health conscious recently and that comparing fitness results could be fun, so he wanted to design activities around that;
• Nintendo may announce more than just the Wii Zapper and Wii Wheel as the company wants to make the most out of the Wii Remote's potential and the best way to do this is to offer new peripherals at fairly cheap prices.