Interview:Las Vegas Roundtable March 1st 2002

https://web.archive.org/web/20090129152124/http://miyamotoshrine.com/theman/interviews/010302.shtml

Did Pikmin end up being the game you wanted it to be?

Miyamoto-san: For the most part, I'm pretty happy with it. The one thing that I think is kind of unfortunate is that the game appeals primarily to people who really like games. We did manage to create pretty easy controls in Pikmin, but I would have liked it more if... Well, there was a certain amount of tension in the game that made it difficult for people who weren't as familiar with gaming or even new to gaming. So, for the most part I was satisfied, but it would have been nice to have a little bit less of a hardcore game, I think.

Are US conversions of Animal Forest +, Doshin the Giant, and Animal Leader planned for underway?

Miyamoto-san: Actually, work on Animal Forest [US] is progressing and moving along quite well. As for Doshin the Giant and Animal Leader, we are in the process of looking whether or not those games are going to be suitable for the US market. Hopefully they will be and we are hoping to work on converting those to English as well. So please go ahead and raise your voices and encourage us to do so.

Animal Forest, which I'm working on with our local translating team, is a game that has a lot of text in it -- an incredible amount compared to some of the past games we've seen. It's a title with 300-plus characters and it takes quite a while to get through it and get it all done. In fact, if you look at an RPG with a lot of text in it, Animal Forest probably has four or five times the amount as something like that. But we are working on it and it's coming along very well. Nintendo has said in the past that we aren't going to make big games, but that's not always the case. When we need to we are going to [laughs].

When can we expect Animal Forest to release in the US?

Iwata-san: We're thinking about later this year, perhaps in the fall -- sometime around then.

Do you think that you will develop games in the future that are exclusive to the Japanese market?

Miyamoto: I think for the most part games that do end up staying in the Japanese market might be tie-ins with the Japanese animations that haven't come overseas. Nintendo does also support some more independent directors and it's possible that the work they do will not come over to the US. But for the most part Nintendo focuses mostly on creating games that will appeal to a wide audience and can be sold around the world.

Iwata: Nintendo certainly does have access to markets and can sell its games all around the world and with the cost of creating games becoming more expensive and taking longer it just makes sense to focus on the world market and be focused on it from the beginning of game development.

However, there are certain tendencies in specific countries where they will require certain genres of games to ensure the success of a console. One example of that would be, for instant, in the US market, where if a console came out and never had an American football game on it people might not be as interested. American players like football even though this type of game doesn't do well overseas.

Can you tell us about the current development status of the new Zelda GameCube title?

Miyamoto: [Laughs] Well, I've actually just come from Europe where I did a lot of press interviews and this question came up a lot. It was asked to me very often. And what I've been saying is that it's in a state right now where by the end of this year you will be able to play it. But I don't really want to show it at this point because if you just look at the game without actually sitting down and playing it and getting a feel for it then really the topic of discussion becomes the graphics rather than the game itself. What I can say is that the game will be playable at E3 and I would like everybody to pick it up there and see what they think about it at that point and then form their opinions about the game.

We've heard that Mr. Yamauchi will retire. Who will take his position?

Miyamoto: Mr. Yamauchi has been saying for some time now that he's going to retire this year. And actually he said this to staff at Nintendo of Japan at the beginning of the year and more again recently. However, while I'm sure he knows and has a plan for what will happen after his retirement, he hasn't said exactly what that plan is. I believe it is his through that he will keep that information close to him until just prior to his retirement. So while I'm sure that deep in his heart he does have a plan, I do not know what it is.

Since all of you have shown up so early this morning and I'm sure some of you are probably hung-over, I'm sure you're probably looking for some solid answers to at least a few questions. I can say for sure, at least, that Yamauchi's successor is not me [laughs].

What are the keys, besides the obvious of making good games, for Nintendo to survive against Sony and Microsoft? And would Nintendo ever consider selling its games to one of these companies?

Iwata: Making good games is obviously important, but not enough to really win out in competition. I think really it is all about how different you can be from your competition and how you can set yourself apart. Because if you have really large companies that are well financed and competing on the same merits, what it really comes down to is that whoever has the most money will win. The most important thing for Nintendo is to make good games, but also to do what we want and define the difference that makes Nintendo what it is. This is something that we have been focusing on since last year and that's the direction that I think we will continue to go in.

When something you're creating is a necessity of life and a product that people can't live without, that's really when finances come into play and that's when those types of elements become necessary to competition. But videogames aren't a necessity of life. So what we really need to do is ensure that Nintendo's products are the form of entertainment that people are choosing. And I think we can do this by realizing ideas that have never been used before and creating elements in games that have never been seen before. I honestly think Nintendo on as a whole has the strength to do that and I've never been worried that we will fail in that arena.

Miyamoto: It's not truly a competition. I know that the media looks at the numbers and how things are selling and the competition aspect of the industry. But to me creativity isn't really a competition -- it's more about a competition with yourself to see what kind of creative things you can come up with. And you may end up producing things that seem like they're in competition with other products, but really you're just trying to challenge yourself and I think that's what this is all about.

So I'm reluctant to create new updates to traditional franchises but because users demand them we do have to continue on the franchises and release new updates to the series. That's one of the biggest things that concerns me as well. When you really break it down,

I think Nintendo is a company that focuses on software whereas some of the other companies focus on the hardware side. The hardware companies have a tendency to create things that people have already seen so what they do is try to one-up them by making the games more beautiful and repeat things that people have already seen. So what I really mean is that the hardware makers are always talking about what they are going to do in the future, but I think that anybody, even a young child, can guess what they are going to have available. I'm sure a lot of people here even are talking about network gaming but I think anybody can make a good guess as to what types of games are going to come out.

But we at Nintendo want to create things that customers have not seen up until this point. And I think even I don't know what that's going to be next; I don't know how to solve that mystery. I think it's my job to kind of search out and try to find what that new thing is going to be.

Iwata: I think the media will often to refer to Sony and Microsoft as game industry giants and it's true in the sense of the sizes of the companies that they really are giants. But to me the question is, among the software makers and who is really selling software, who is the giant?

One more thing in addition -- it's really our job to essentially bring surprise and excitement to the player and to do that we have to try and show them things that they have never seen before. So people have always asked us, aren't you worried that Microsoft is coming to the game industry? But the fact of the matter is that because we are competing on such a different level we have never once been concerned about it at all.

How do you see Nintendo's image -- how it was and is? And how do you see it changing, if at all?

Miyamoto: I think that when you look at the big picture it's true that during the N64 era Nintendo did have an image of being a more younger focused company. And actually I think a lot of that had to do with our competitors trying to pin us down as being more kiddie-oriented for their own PR purposes. And when Sega and Nintendo were competing the same thing happened and Nintendo was given a more childish image. But the fact of the matter is that we've always focused on making games for all ages and trying to have a library that will appeal to young and old. Nintendo has always focused on having games that the entire family can enjoy and I think in that sense we will continue to promote that and move in that direction.

Iwata: At the core how we make our games isn't going to change. One thing that we are really proud of is the fact that we can make games that young people will enjoy. But really I think it's a question of how we are going to focus on giving people an image of Nintendo that we think is accurate. For a long in the US there has been this negative feeling about gaming as something you do in a dark room, and what we're trying to do with GameCube is bring it out of the dark room and put it in the living room where the whole family can sit and enjoy it.

When are you going to reveal more about software in development for the Triforce arcade board?

Iwata: The Triforce arcade board was essentially an announcement in cooperation between Sega, Namco and Nintendo. It really stemmed from the fact that Namco and Sega took a look at the GameCube architecture and the capabilities of the GameCube and the cost effectiveness of it and decided that it was a hardware really suited to making arcade games. Because of that, they wanted to have an arcade board for their business in the arcade industry and with that in mind Nintendo was happy to cooperate with them, but that doesn't mean that we're necessarily thinking about making arcade games. Obviously nobody can see into the future, but that is not our plan at this point.

However, because Namco and Sega are making games for the Triforce arcade board, which is based on GameCube system, that means that it will be much easier to bring those types of games to GameCube and that will essentially provide the system with a broader and more appealing library of games. With that in mind, I think, probably in the weeks and months leading up to E3 there is a high probability that there will be some announcements as to what types of things you will see on the Triforce board.

Miyamoto: It sounds like something I said in an interview in Europe has worked its way rapidly around the world. I think I did say that something like Super Smash Bros. Melee might appear on the Triforce board.

But really, the whole idea of the arcade board came out of discussion between Sega and Namco, and it was an idea that came from them. Being somebody that really got his start in the arcade industry, of course I think it would be nice to make some arcade games again, but actually we don't have any plans at this point.

Do you know if a version of Soul Calibur 2 is in development for the Triforce hardware?

Iwata: We really don't know at this point -- that's Namco's decision.

Miyamoto: Namco is a company that manages its information very well, so unless it's something that we've spoken directly with them about doing we can't tell if they are working on it or not [laughs]. But I think the fact that we could work together with companies like Sega and Namco to produce something shows a change in the industry.

How is the development of Pokemon for GameCube going? Will we see its release in the US in 2002?

Iwata: We actually think that there are a variety of different things that can be done with Pokemon on GameCube, and because of that we are looking at several different possible directions we could take it to. You'll probably be hearing some announcements on that sometime in the future.

One thing I would like to note is that the next-generation of the Gold and Silver games, essentially Pokemon Game Boy Advance, is underway in Japan. And while we haven't announced anything yet I do think it will probably be out this year in Japan. Of course, with localization we're not sure. I'd like to think we can get it out later this year in the US, but if not as soon as we possibly can.