Interview:Fragzone February 19th 2002

Shigeru Miyamoto talks to Fragzone about some of the various games being made for the Nintendo Gamecube. The question of why there was no Mario or Zelda game as a launch title was brought up, as well as a question regarding the emphasis on gameplay and storyline.

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Metroid Prime became an FPS, is it because you want to target the American demographic and compete with Halo?

- Metroid Prime is created for me to like it, but it has a little more American action than before.

Why no Mario game with the release of GameCube?

- Many people criticise Nintendo and claims that we only are Mario and Zelda. We have to show diversity and we do that through our unique titles.

It had nothing to do with the timelimit?

- No, however now we have all the time in the world to make Mario Sunshine a great game. It will be sort of a sequal to Mario 64, not a direct one though - we will have alot of new things that separates them and makes each and one unique.

You "flirt with the older gamers", is it because of the criticism that you only make kiddie games?

- We have more titles for a older demographic than before. However, Mario has not been targeted towards kids, we make games for everyone. We do not exclude any thinkable gamer.

The games will probably be more violent with the older demographic, what is your opinion on violence in games?

- A tough question. Games exists only to entertain and violence is one of the ingredients. Violence is one way to go, to capture the gamers interest through drama is alot harder. Since we represent interactive media, we have to be more careful, since the player controls the action. It's not like watching a movie where you can't control the outcome, it's the gamer that makes things happen.

Iwata cuts in and says it's important that the consumer knows that a product contains violence before buying it.

Miyamoto continues: So it's important that the boxes has the age ratings on them. In the end it is up to the parents to inform and set the limits. My parents forbid me to whats some tv-shows when I was a child.

Then you can only hope that kids don't just play one type of games, but many different types. But they need to get in touch with things in reality to understands what hurts and so on.

Resident Evil is GameCube exclusive - How did that happen?

- I took a stranglehold on Shinji Mikami (Capcom) and said that if it doesn't become exclusive... haha, no, just kidding.

It was actually Shinji Mikami who called me and talked about the game, he considered that GameCube was the best console for it, but was worried that it would be too violent for Nintendo. I told him that violence was not a factor and you can do whatever you want.

When you make a game for one console it becomes optimised for it, when you make a game for several consoles you have to use the worse one as a "base" and that makes the game not live up to its fullest potential. That was the strongest reason for Resident Evil to become exclusive to GameCube, it's just fitted the best on GameCube.

What are your thoughts on online-gaming and the GameCube?

- Every new function makes a game harder to reach the casual gamers, it's something you have to think about. You can't just go home and start playing, like you usually can with a videogame. You have to connect to the internet and there will be more costs to connect and so on. If you demand broadband it becomes even harder, it's estimated that 20% of the households will have broadband the year 2005.

- Many people feel that it's more important that a game is online than that you're able to play four players on the same screen. Online shouldn't be the only thing in a product, instead it should only be one of the ingredients. Online-gaming has the potential to become what 3D became when 2D was the standard, but just like a game isn't good just because it's 3D, it isn't good just because it's online. It takes more.

- We're waiting for the right time for online and right now we're going for other types of entertainment such as the ability to link Gameboy Advance with the GameCube.

Does this mean that you'll exclude it because it's commercial?

- No, we don't exclude anything because it's not commercial, but it gets some limits considering it's gets a small development division.

Speaking of time, do you have time to be innovative nowadays?

- I am mostly a game producer since it's so many games I supervise, but I have always a couple of games where I am a bit more involved in as a director. Also there it often happens that I take the role as the producer. Everyone here is already under a lot of pressure so sometimes I just work as a sort of support.

How important is creativity?

- It's a combination of many talents that make you succeed, not that you're only one. Everyone can be creative.

Graphics are everyones property, every console can show beautiful graphics, what is your philosophy about that?

- For a period of time, graphics were the most important thing but now it has - considering a certain level has been reached - become more important with content. A combination of both is the best. Nintendo encourages our developers to spend more time on the content than the graphics.

How important is character, graphics and story and everything else in a game?

- I can't answer that, but the gameplay is always the most important. I always put the least priority into story.

You are pioneering and is often the one who develops completely new concepts, how does it feel when you have developed something for a long time and then someone blatantly copies it straight off?

- Doesn't bother me too much. But it's a delicate question. Sometimes when I suggest new ideas to me colleagues I get the answer "That's already in that game". Mario Kart was the title I had in mind when I thought of the many copies. Mario Kart is unique. The next Mario Kart has to change a lot since it's a used concept by now.

Why did you choose to create a little bit odd media for GameCube?

- Nintendo makes above all software and we have to be a step ahead. We've chosen to optimise the media, both because of to minimise the cost of the material, but also to minimise the disc burning. So it's good in many ways. Plus it loads really fast. We also send out the message to developers that they don't have to fill every tracks on the disc.

Which games are you looking forward to for GameCube?

- Personally I'm looking forward to Mario Sunshine and Legend of Zelda.

Mario - do you have any similarity with him?

- He is a hard working man, who isn't that smart nor attractive. So there might be some similarity.

Punch Out - Will there be more games in the series?

- Iwata answers the question completely without an interpreter and laughs a little when he tells that there is a hardware developer who were behind Punch Out and it's the same man who's behind GameCube. I answer quickly with " so he's been busy with other things" and Iwata laughs again. Iwata continues with that there will be more games in the series but he doesn't know when or to what system.

What are you doing on the mobile front?

- I don't think that you can make a good game yet. They can't compare with Gameboy Advance. That's why we don't have any plans currently or in the close future. But, you never know what happens beyond that.

The car says a lot about its owner - what kind of car do you drive?

- (Miyamoto, Iwata and the interpreter laughs - a lot and for a long time. Not a usual question to the creator of Mario). I have a Nissan Serena, it's a family car with seats for seven people.

Are you nervous about the Europe-release of GameCube?

- No, we have a lot of confidence about that release. From day one we will have a very strong flow of games. However, we are sorry that we couldn't release the console any earlier.

The natural question; Why should you buy a GameCube in May?

- The GameCube is created for the gamer. Many developers claims that GameCube is the easiest console to develop for and because of that, you can make the games as good as possible. Plus it's the cheapest one on the market.