At E3 roughly half a year after the Interview in Kyoto I had the privilege to talk with Miyamoto again after Nintendo had just unveiled the Nintendo DS. Upon asking if the DS was what he was talking about in our previous interview he replied: Well yes that is what I meant last time but of course I couldnt tell you about it last year. At Nintendo I have the luxury of creating hardware to serve the software and if you look at the DS it is an evolved handheld device. With the NES we introduced the first DPad, with the Nintendo 64 we introduced the first analog stick and now with the DS we continue to introduce these new play styles. Wheater its touch controls with the stylus or using the build in microphone to aid in control or the wireless features we build into the DS. We have taken all these features and thats really going to allow us to create new styles of gameplay that we have never seen before. Upon asking what this would mean for the average gamer his reply was as brilliant as it was simple: Well what it allows us to do is level the playing field a hardcore gamer and a casual gamer will both be picking up the stylus at the same time its new for both of them and neither has an advantage and in that sense the DS becomes a system that anybody can play 5 to 95(he means ages) and everybody who plays it is at the same level and for that reason it is really going to broaden and open up the market for us.
Going back to the older interview the meeting he had with Kojima as we found out later had to do with the Silicon Knights produced Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes and it further underlined the trouble Nintendo was in. In order to get high profile third party games Nintendo was more or less forced to lend third parties their characters or develop the titles themselves. So when I mentioned the relative failure of the Gamecube and President Satoru Iwata`s apology at E3 Miyamoto became very passionate and nervously he started a really long monolog where he kept repeating himself and denied what thousands of people witnessed in person, the following is a short version of what he replied and is edited for clarity and length: I think that how people interpret what we say is something that needs to be discussed. Mr. Iwata is a former mechanical engineering designer. As the president, sometimes what he says might be misinterpreted as the whole company's position, but because of his background, when he speaks of not achieving a goal, he talks about it more on a personal level - like challenges that weren't surpassed or expectations he couldn't meet. When Mr. Iwata spoke of the N64, we weren't admitting it was a failure. We just think that maybe things could have been done better a little smoother and more streamlined. It was a capable machine, but maybe it was too hard for our third-party developers. We should always be looking back on the past and looking at our experiences to improve ourselves. He never meant to say the N64 or anything else was an outright mistake. Quite the opposite, since Nintendo is a company built on risk-taking. If we don't take risks, we can't innovate and create new forms of entertainment. If we challenged the established norm, meaning ourselves as well as others but didn't wholly succeed, we don't consider it a mistake. So what he said was taken out of context and wasn't quite what he wanted to convey. With a background like his, he always feels like things maybe could have been a little bit better than they turned out. Most of the comments that might have been misunderstood were made about 2 years ago, I think. Mr. Iwata talked about the fact that with Mario and Metroid that they were anticipating greater sales, but they didn't increase hardware sell-through as expected. Right now, at R&D, we're simply trying to fine-tune our games as much as possible. We had to delay Pikmin 2, but that's because I wanted this game to be of the high quality standards that Nintendo is known for. Nintendo's major strength is great character franchises. When people speak of Nintendo, they talk of the important Nintendo character franchises as well. But we're always working on new and original games, too. I think, beyond our established works, Nintendo also has to make efforts to design great, new game series. What Nintendo is doing differently these days is trying to build strong relationships between the game creators at Nintendo and other companies. We've worked with Mr. Nagoshi, Mr. Imamura, Mr. Naka, Mr. Okamoto (before his departure from Capcom), Mr. Kojima... It is the personal relationships between creators that has produced these collaborations, which then continue to be beneficial to all who are involved.
Despite the fact that Satoru Iwata mentioned the Gamecube by name and was not even a Nintendo employee during the N64 era(Iwata worked for Hal laboratories while the infamous Hiroshi Yamauchi was president) Miyamoto would have none of it and had no problems denying what everybody in the games industry knew to be true, he would not sit there and have his current console be badmouthed by anyone. Not even the person who on paper at least to this day is still his boss. When I tried to mention the fact Iwata mentioned the Gamecube by name he kept insisting the entire world had misunderstood the words of the President of the company.
As the chat continued we started talking about the changing marketplace compared to the 90s so when asked if Nintendo was a company in transition I got another lengthy reply: Yes. After all, the entertainment business has to keep reinventing itself, or it will not persist. When we speak from the viewpoint of the customer, they always want something you can't get from anyone else. I just talked a moment ago about our fine-tuning processes. We used to be able to do this to cater to the veteran game players. But, when we say fine-tuning now, we have to make sure it's accessible to both the veterans and the novice players who are just getting into gaming. It's become very different nowadays from when we could sell massive amounts of games of any sort. After all, customers want uniqueness. However, people tend to flood to things which are easy to understand. It isn't always easy to make something that's both unique and easy to understand. The current situation is that games are everywhere now. Games themselves aren't unique anymore, so you can't sell on the simple basis of being a video game anymore. We've constantly had to abandon things we've done in the past. Unless we can change ourselves repeatedly, we can't create anything new and interesting. So in that regard yes I would have to say that Nintendo is a company in transition, simply because of the fact that the entertainment industry itself is constantly in transition. We hope we can continue to be a driving force in the constant change this industry is going trough.
From talking about the state of Nintendo talk shifted to talking about Miyamoto and what he thought the future will bring for his company and himself: My children are now 17 and 18 years old. Soon they'll be off to college, then after about 5 years or so they will be assuming their places in the workforce(his kids have since left the house). I sometimes wonder what I'll do when they're gone. So far, my priority has been to be a family person. But they'll be leaving soon, so I need to think about what I'm going to be doing after that. One thing I've been doing nowadays is practicing musical instruments. I've already mentioned my garage band back in college, and my concert hall performance. My wife sings sometimes, so maybe she'll join me in a band. It's my secret mission! *laughs* At Nintendo, I don't see anything changing drastically in the near future. I might leave Nintendo to retire someday. I have to consider what I'll be doing when that day comes. Of course, when I challenge myself to do something new, that's always fun. About 5 years ago, I started a garden(which resulted in Pikmin), and 2 years ago, I got a puppy. I loved the experience of training the puppy and watching it grow(which resulted in Nintendogs). And, at my home, I study music. I made a personal music studio in my garage, all by myself. I also made a big kennel for the dog. I love those sorts of DIY projects. Making things with my own hands has always fascinated me.
While technically he should call Donkey Kong his favorite production since it was the game that started it all he tells me that in reality he is most proud of Mario 64 since he could use a lot of the ideas he had for years in that game, talking about other companies games however is something he does not like to do: I haven't played a whole lot of other companies' games, actually. I don't really like answering that sort of question, because I don't really have the ability to play other games in depth. But, even though it's a Nintendo product, I really liked Wario Ware a lot. I didn't have any involvement with it, so playing it after it was done was something really fresh and new for me.
Instead of talking about other peoples games he directed the interview back to his cooperations with other companies which he described as being mutually beneficial: We are always calling them collaborations. Other hardware companies buy exclusives from third parties. We feel that doesn't benefit the third parties and the consumers very much. Our goal is to combine our strengths so that all parties involved can benefit. Those who we work with get the benefit of working with our famous characters and properties, and the consumers get a better variety of strong character-based titles. In turn, it gives us more resources to develop new and original content. It's a winning situation for everyone involved. Like with Donkey Konga, made by the Taiko no Tatsujin (a popular rhythm game in Japan involving the use of traditional Japanese Taiko drums-ed.) team at Namco. The controller was made by Nintendo, and Namco made the game itself. Since the Taiko is a more cultural instrument, we thought something like Donkey Konga has more broad appeal to a world market. This way we ensure that all involved benefit from this mutual cooperation. The people we work with (as mentioned before, we dont view it as Nintendo or simply myself working with a company, but rather with people at those companies) get to work with characters and properties which they otherwise would have no access to and the consumers get a broader range of games with characters they recognize and love while we get more time to continue working on new concepts and ideas.
When pressed on Western developers love for adult themes and violent games however again he seems to become nervous and uneasy with the subject matter: It's a difficult question for me to answer. All I can say is that this isn't the sort of game Nintendo wants to make. I suppose whether it's really acceptable depends on the concepts and the ideology the game makers have in mind. As far as I am concerned, my own criteria are "when I play my own game, is it something I can be proud of, is it something I can sit down and play with my kids?
Once the rumors started about Project Revolution(Wii) during another chat with him I asked him when he could talk more about it and what we could expect, he replied: Well yeah, I don't know when we'll be talking about it specifically, but you know Nintendo's always researching new hardware and new styles of hardware, and I think that one thing that's really going to influence the direction that the next system takes will be how people react to the DS and the kinds of new features the DS introduces. If all you do is look at the technical specifications of hardware and you continually up those every few years, then eventually all that you have is a hardware battle, and it's a competition for who can make the most technologically advanced hardware. But Nintendo's a software company, too. So for us, it's not about just trying to create really incredible hardware, it's about trying to create really incredible software. We're going to create hardware that allows us to create that, in a way that brings creativity and fun to the games.
Now at this point some of you may be wondering why I am focusing on stuff that happened almost a decade ago. Thing is I have followed Mr Miyamoto´s career almost my entire life and have been lucky enough to share several hours in his presence. We all know the old stories about him, how he grew up in the beautiful hills around Kyoto and how as a kid hiking around there later in his life inspired him to create legend of Zelda, how Donkey Kong in 1981 saved Nintendo from the brink of disaster. I too talked with him about his love for creating things with limited materials as a kid and how he still adheres to that in game design(dont overwhelm the player, ease them into the game). Those are stories you can read about all over the internet. What I hope to achieve here is show just how instrumental those dark years at Nintendo in the first part of the previous decade was in bringing out the best in Miyamoto and how he formed the company to be an extension of who he is.
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