On Thursday May 15th, Nintendo held a media-only roundtable conference after the regular E3 show attendees had all gone home. The point of this year's roundtable meeting was to look a little bit more in-depth at Konami's collaboration with Nintendo and Silicon Knights -- Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes. Also under the media microscope was Konami's new innovative GBA title Boktai: The Sun is in Your Hands.
Nintendo's own Shigeru Miyamoto was also on hand to promote the new GCN/GBA connectivity title The Legend of Zelda: Tetra's Trackers and to also give the crowd a little sneaky look at a title which has been in development -- at some level or another -- since the last days of the 64DD. Stage Debut utilizes the Game Eye GBA camera which was seen at last year's show and allows the user to snap a photo of his own face. This picture can then be sent to the GameCube game and mapped onto a new comedic super-deformed character. Part of the character creation process involves answering some multiple choice questions, which ultimately affect the look of the new Frankenstein's monster.
Miyamoto, Kojima and Dyack
After some light refreshments, the press members gathered inside Nintendo's fabulous booth located in the West Hall of the L.A. convention center. Seated at the front of the audience, Miyamoto, Kojima and Dyack all took turns to watch videos of the aforementioned games. Questions varied but one theme remained throughout the answers from Miyamoto and Kojima -- connectivity.
It transpires that Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes on the GameCube will feature some GBA connectivity, although Miyamoto was coy as to specific details. Of course, The Legend of Zelda: Tetra's Trackers is already available on the show floor and demonstrates more connectivity-style gameplay between the two Nintendo pieces of hardware. Kojima's Boktai was great and is the first game ever to use solar sensing hardware to influence gameplay. The idea is that you play the role of a vampire hunter, and in order to defeat the boss of the game, you must play outside in direct sunlight. An in-game light meter will tell you when you need to go into the sun. The overall impact for the game is stunning.
A question and answer session revealed some pretty interesting points and opinions from the three members of the panel.
Q: What appealed to you about the idea of a remake of Metal Gear Solid for the GameCube?
Miyamoto: We've been talking a lot at the show about connectivity and I've always thought that it would be really neat if we could have some kind of connectivity with a game like MGS.
Dyack: I think as far connectivity goes, this is the one feature that we can offer which is unique to the GameCube. Not only does it combine the best elements of both MGS and MGS2 but using connectivity will bring it one step further for a unique experience for players who want to play the game.
Q: Is the connectivity you're referring to between the companies making the game, or between the GameCube and GBA?
Miyamoto: Yes, there will be some kind of connectivity between the GameCube and GBA but we haven't announced any specifics yet.
Q: Anything to say now, or do we have to wait until later?
Miyamoto: We can't say anything concrete about that now, but I think we can have Mr. Kojima say a few words about the new version.
Kojima: The original game came out about five years ago people loved the story, the characters and the setting of the game. MGS2 came out about three years ago and again, people loved the action, the gameplay and the smart enemy AI. So I asked myself, "what do I want to do for MGS for the GameCube." I decided on combining the best scenarios from the first two games and this is what MGS on the GameCube is.
Q: For Mr. Kojima -- we're you nervous about putting the development of your signature franchise in the hands of another developer?
Kojima: Yes, I was nervous at first. I went to Miyamoto-san for his advice. We had no experience of developing for the GameCube so Miyamoto-san introduced us to these great creative guys in Canada -- Silicon Knights. Denis (Dyack) and his staff came to Japan and we met and went for Chinese food. We already knew that they were technologically capable, but we wanted to know whether or not we had the same soul and ideas -- which we did. So I decided there and then that we should all work together on the project. I have no worries right now.
Boktai
Q: Mr. Dyack, can you explain how you are going about the remake -- both on a technical level and on a workflow level?
Dyack: There's constant collaboration on an almost daily basis. Not only do we travel to Japan often, we also have people from Konami staying at Silicon Knights in Canada. We have video conference calls almost every day. The whole aspect of the development is such a unique collaboration between Nintendo, Konami and Silicon Knights that we're constantly throwing around ideas, trying to make sure that the experience is maximized for the player. Our goal is to provide something that people haven't seen before.
BOKTAI TIME!
Q: Regarding Boktai, what kind of experiments did you do to make sure that Boktai would work as a video game?
Kojima: We actually went outside of the office in Tokyo everyday. We stay out from the morning to the evening until the sun sets and we test the game. Now that the Japanese version is almost done, we've taken to game all around Japan to test the different levels of sunlight. We were also trying to keep the project secret but the problem was that our guys were sitting outside with the game, but then too many people knew about the game!
Q: Mr. Miyamoto -- this is then first time that we've really seen Stage Debut. Where did you come up with the idea for the game?
Miyamoto: Actually, we've been working on this since the days of the disk drive for the Nintendo 64 (64DD) and really the idea is that to create something of your own is always fun.
Q: Mr. Miyamoto -- when Pokemon: Ruby & Sapphire came out a lot of kids seemed to be disappointed that some of their favorite Pokemon has been scrapped. Will we be getting them back in some of the new Pokemon titles?
Miyamoto: I can't really give any details out right now, but let's just say, "Don't worry!"
Q: What about the new/next Mario game?
Miyamoto: We're showing a lot of connectivity products here on the show floor and those are taking a lot of my focus. But I do kind of wish I'd brought a Mario connectivity game to E3 this year. Rest assured that you know we'll be putting a lot of focus on Mario over the next year or so. EAD is already hard at work on Mario and Donkey Kong.
Q: We've read a lot about what western game developers have learned from Japanese game developers. What have Mr. Miyamoto and Mr. Kojima learned from Silicon Knights?
Miyamoto: Western developers have many strengths and I think that one of those is technical knowledge and also art style. They've got some very impressive technology.
Kojima: I totally agree. Now that western game developers have grown up playing Japanese games, you see a lot of the same techniques. Then you also have the advanced technological side there too. And now we're really starting to see some great games, in addition to the great imagination that goes into those games. I consider myself a student of Miyamoto-san -- I've learned game creation through him and video game creators essentially create a set of rules. When I look at western games, instead of creating western rules, what they do is strive to create a very realistic world in the game. You're allowed to do anything.
Dyack: One of the things that really exciting about the relationship for me, and please understand that these guys are master game creators, we're really working towards merging the future of game development between east and west for the future of video games and that makes me really happy. I think our group in general has the same ideas and beliefs, so really the collaboration from that standpoint is one of the most important aspects.
Q: How do you plan on marketing the new Zelda connectivity titles? Will they be included on a compilation disk, sold separately, or part of another Zelda game?
Miyamoto: We're actually talking about how we might market these types of games, particularly with Namco and the new Pac-Man game. Obviously, back in the silicon cartridge days it was very difficult for me to do some of the things I wanted to do. Now we've moved to a different media we've got more freedom with how we want to launch products as well saw with the successful Ocarina of Time promotional disc with The Wind Waker release. Now we have the freedom, there are different opportunities as to how we want to market these new games.
Q: In regards to Stage Debut -- what we’ve seen here is pretty intriguing but does the game develop any conventional gameplay or it is more like a fishbowl where you watch your creations interact with each other?
Miyamoto: I think like with Animal Crossing -- which is a game with no real conventional gameplay -- the game will be for people that don’t like the difficulty of games or to achieve all the objectives, but would still be willing to play a game every day just to see what happens. Four years ago when we were first talking about this idea, people thought scoffed at the idea it was a silly idea. But when AC launched in Japan and here in the U.S. the game went on to do very well. So I guess you could say that I'm trying to make new challenges but in a different way to the way we've made games in the past.
Sausage-in-training
Originally Posted by rezo
Posting Permissions
Bookmarks