Interview:GamePro April 1st 2002

Shigeru Miyamoto sits down with GamePro magazine and talks about a variety of gaming topics including the graphics of the upcoming Zelda Gamecube. He touches on cel-shading and the issues with a realistic looking title.

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GP: If the GCN is capable of gorgeous, life-like visuals, why did you opt for a basic, cartoonish look for the upcoming Zelda adventure?

SM: I have to admit I've been hearing that question from a fairly large number of people. I'm just glad most of them are still looking forward to the game{laughs}. At this year's E3, I think we're going to have the game at a point where people can interact with it. Videogames aren't something you just look at, after all. If you can't play and feel the game yourself, you're not going to get the complete picture. So I'd like to hopefully talk about the game a little more once everyone's been able to play it.

GP: Many gamers have been vocal about the visual direction partly because they thought the sample footage from last year's E3 was a sample of what the first GCN Zelda game would look like--more in the style opf OoT or MM. How do you respond to that negative reaction? Does it affect what you do?

SM: A lot fo opinions have been exchanged over the net about this and I've read a lot of them, but...well, I'd like to have them play the game a little and then start discussing it{laughs}. I'm not convinced that beautiful graphics inherently lead to a fun game. A lot of game artists in Japan are striving for this ultimate graphical goal, and the result is you're beginning to see a lot of games that look exactly like each other When we first started thinking what the graphics should look like, we realized that Zelda wouldn't be Zelda if it looked like everything else. The rest of the team wanted to keep pushing the series to new fields graphically, and I realized that I agreed with what they had in mind, so that's why we're taking the direction we are. The general public still hasn't seen what the finished cartoony graphics look like yet, so all I can really say right now is to just look forward to the game.

GP: Sony and Microsoft will be announcing online products for their systems this year. What is your view on console online connectivity? Do you beleive that online gameplay will appear for the GCN over the next few years or possible even sooner?

SM: Well, online is popular right now because of the communication factor. Multiplayer games are fun because you're able to interact with other human beings; this is true whether you're dialing up to a network or not. However, that doesn't mean attaching online features to every single game will make all of them more interesting. I don't think every game in the world is suddenly going to be online from now on.

As a company, Nintendo believes that network games are simply another genre in the overall picture. Of course, the GCN will have networking capabilities that will let you go online easily. We have a lot of experience with the kinds of games and franchises that are fun over networks, so we can enter the marketplace any time we like without too much fanfare. It's just that Nintendo has an extremely broad audience. We've tried to provide entertainment that appeals to as many people as possible, and the user base for online is still too small for that strategy to work. ISP fees are still a major problem over in Japan, too. The state of the internet connectivity is different in every other country.

GP: So you think it's still a little too early to enter the market on a worldwide level?

SM: Right, right. I want as many people around the world as possible to play my games. So maybe there'll be a small localized-area project here and there, but basically, Nintendo thinks it's a little too early yet to go all-out on online. I know Microsoft is basing a lot of Xbox PR on its built-in network capabilities and Sony is going on and on about online in its efforts to expand its reach, but as far as i'm concerned, online is not the most important issue governing the future of videogames. Still, while Nintendo is being conservative here, it's not that we're ignoring online completely. It's just that there are other things that make games fun besides online play, and devoting our time to those things opens up a wider audience for us.

GP: So do you think we'll see a Miyamoto-designed online multiplayer game sometime?

SM: Well, starting a network project is simple, but keeping it going is a lot more difficult. The way I work, once I finish up one game, I want to immediately move on to the next one, so when I think about all the time I'd have to devote to online game upkeep and such, I'm not sure that really sounds very fun to do. PR Departments love it right now, but for designers it's not the easiest path to take. That said, there are people on our team who like online games, and if they want to start a project, I might just join it. But designing an online game is not my top priority right now...not that I'm confimring or denying anything{laughs}. I mean, something like Animal Forest, that'd make a great online game, wouldn't it? Sometimes I wonder what that'd be like or what Pikmin online would be like...not that i'm making them or anything{laughs}.

GP: Speaking of Pikmin, are you happy with the way the game turned out?

SM: I'm happy that it's appealing to a very wide age range, kind of the same way Mario has up to now. There's this general notion that Nintendo's games are all targeted for children, so I wanted to make a set of characters that a wide range of people would enjoy playing with. I'd like to keep on using them, and besides, there really isn't any game on the market now competing with it, so the game has a lot of long-term appeal.

These days, the problem for a lot of games is that nothing sells anymore except for the first few weeks after release, we wanted to produce nothing but long-sellers. We aimed for that with Pikmin, and by extension of that, we definitely want to keep it going as a series.

GP: What can gamers look forward to seeing in Mario Sunshine that they haven't seen in a Mario game before?

SM: We're planning to reveal the full details with the playable version at E3, so I can't say too much right now. It'll be very similar in structure to Mario 64. Mario has something like a water gun on his back, and he'll be using it to clean up places and so forth. He'll be doing a lot of stuff he's never done before. We've been trying to tackle some new ideas without losing what makes Mario games fun. The GCN is much more powerful than the N64 too, so the game will be a lot livelier than Mario 64 ever was. There's tons of stuff moving around all the time.

GP: Fans are very eager to see Metroid make its return to Nintendo platforms. What can you tell us about Metroid Prime?

SM: Well, everyone who's asked me about it thinks that it's just going to be another FPS{laughs}, but essentially our aim is to keep everything that made the old Metroid series great. The Metroid series is interesting because of the exploration aspect; you really get the feeling that Samus is exploring these dark, abandoned corridors in space. Turning this into a shooter with a straight first-person perspective would completely destroy this feeling, so we're experimenting with camera angles to re-create the Metroid atmosphere. Taking a look at the screens available, it's easy for people to pigeonhole it into the FPS genre, but the gasme will definitley focus on exploration.

GP: Sop there's a lot more to do that in your typical PC-style FPS?

SM: Exactly. I'd say "typical" shooter aspects comprise only about a third of the game. Samus will spend most of her time running around labyrinths, discovering secrets, that sort of thing. I think that the balance is closest to the original thrust of the Metroid series.

GP: When will we see the first Nintendo-designed games that use the GBA/GCN link?

SM: You'll be seeing a lot of them soon. Animal Forest supports it over in Japan, but it's going to take a little while to complete the Ameircan version, so we don't have a date for it yet. Also, there will be another Kirby Tilt N Tumble--the title will probably be different, but there will be a new Kirby cartridge with GCN support. You'll be able to use the tilt-sensor technology on the cart to change the tilt of the GCN's screen. We'll be seeing a lot of games like that in the future, games that use the connection to create entire new genres of gaming.

Also, if things like the tilt-sensor cart sell well enough, third aprties will be able to support it in their GCN games. We've gotton a lot of interest from third party developers about new hardware like that. So that sort of software will begin to become a bit more prevailent closer to the end of this year or the beginning of this year.

GP: Have there been any recent games that impressed you or made you say, "Man, I wish I'd come up with that"?

SM: Hmmm...not too much recently, actually, I didn't do too much work on Animal Forest, that was mostly done by newer members of the team, but I think that game turned out surprisingly well. And that's about it{laughs}.

I think a game doesn't have to be completely astounding in presentation to be good, as long as everyone can have fun playing it, that's great, especially if people who aren't really good at games can get into it. I kind of wish there were more games nowadays that pursued that route.