Miyamoto Reveals all in Exclusive Interview!

On a rare trip to Europe, Mr Miyamoto, inventor of Mario, Zelda and so much more, took some time out to show us brand new exclusive Mario Sunshine footage and tell us all about what’s been going on over at Nintendo HQ.

In this interview, Miyamoto talks candidly about TriForce, GameCube online, Mario Kart for GameCube, Mr Yamauchi and covers everything you might have been wanting to know about the current state of Nintendo. We also discover that despite being one of e most famous and important people in computer games he is a very humble, kind, friendly and mischievous man with the strange ability to accidentally terrify a room of seven games journalists.

First we were treated to an exclusive world-first screening of the latest build of Mario Sunshine. It featured huge squid bosses and Mario could be seen wall-kicking his way around the land. Also on show was his water-backpack, which he uses to squirt enemies and propel himself around the level. One scene showed Mario getting caught up in an oil trap, fuelling the rumours that this will be an elemental title with an ecological undertone.

Question: Are you interested in working on the TriForce arcade system and what possibilities do you think it has?

Miyamoto: I am not sure to what extent I can talk about this kind of detail, but let me just generally cover this topic. TriForce is the name of the PCB for the arcade machine and this is the joining of forces between Nintendo, Namco and of course, our old arch-enemy Sega. The three companies have made this announcement recently. TriForce is the name of an item in The Legend of Zelda and it represents three forces coming together to become a big power.

Now, the fact that these three companies made the announcement, doesn’t mean that other companies will not use the system. In fact, we believe that Capcom has confirmed support for the system. As a matter of fact, although we have quite recently made the announcement, games for the system have been in development for a very long time. A significant announcement regarding TriForce arcade software will be made in March or April of this year and you will be surprised by some of the games you will see there. Needless to say that the arcade developers at Sega are going to create a number of software titles.

As to the graphics chip and CPU, they are what is contained in the GameCube actually. I think this signifies two important points. One is that Sega, Namco and Nintendo realise that GameCube technology is good enough to create arcade games and also is that the GameCube technology is easy to make software for, and of course, it’s low cost.

Another important point is, whatever games we are going to release for the TriForce arcade, will be readily available for the GameCube console. Just wait for the announcement in March or April.

Question: Excluding you own projects, which GameCube titles have you been most impressed by?

Miyamoto: Well I have to tell you that this a very difficult question to answer because as a games creator. I always try and refrain from making any comments on other peoples’ work. For example, whenever a Star Wars game is introduced to the American market, it sells in large volume. I believe that the Star Wars game for the GameCube is much better than previous games. Also, Nintendo wants to introduce many varieties of GameCube software, and for the steady line-up of GameCube games, I appreciate the introduction as such titles as Resident Evil.

Question: You have repeatedly stressed that you would like to move away from the “kiddie” image and introduce more titles like Resident Evil and Eternal Dark that contain more mature content. Developers have stated that they may remove certain content for GameCube version of games that are released across all platforms. Do you think this might put certain potential buyers off the system?

Miyamoto: I often talk to other developers and they think that we make GameCube software childish so that we can sell lots more games to children. Whenever we have talks with licensees or potential licensees, we make a point of asking them to make their game exclusive to Nintendo. They obviously mistook it for thinking that Nintendo wanted more childish looking games. So we had a lot of meetings with the licensees, like Sega, and explained that we really needed something unique from Sega. Then they said, “Actually we wanted to make more adult orientated games, rather than making them look childish,” so I said, “Actually, that’s what we wanted to say at the beginning.” And of course, from the management view of the third-party licensees, we really have a responsibility to expand the installed base of the hardware to a much wider audience. For this purpose, even amongst Nintendo first-party titles we have tried to expand software variety. So what is unique about Nintendo today is not that it makes games for children but rather features like the connectivity between GameCube and Game Boy Advance, and the fact that four players can simultaneously play at any moment.

Question: Rumour has been escalating over the past few months that your GameCube development programme will focus more upon shorter games like Pikmin and Luigi’s Mansion. Can you give us your thoughts on this?

Miyamoto: I think for example, that judging the play-time depends very much upon the concept of the game, like the story-telling aspect of each title once you are through to the end of the game. Luigi’s Mansion belongs to that type of story-telling genre. With games like Pikmin, there are some players who will reach the end of the game and quit, where as there are others who will repeatedly try the same courses again and again. I designed Pikmin in the hope that each player would play through the game at least three times. What we are meaning to do is, rather than increasing the scale of development to increase the play-time, we should concentrate on making unique games by a relatively small group of developers. Now, when it comes to the next Legend of Zelda, I have to tell you that there’s going to be a relatively big team. But in the case of Mario Sunshine it’s going to be more like Pikmin, in that it will be made by a relatively small group of people and is going to induce you to play again and again.

Question: What are thoughts on the GameCube’s European release and the May 3 launch date?

Miyamoto: First of all, we could have launched GameCube into Europe in March of this year, but we didn’t. We are sorry that we are late in introducing the GameCube to Europe, but, we really wanted to have the right amount of hardware and by delaying the launch May we are able to stock enough machines to be able to sell 500,000 consoles on day one. Within two month’s of the launch we expect to shift 1,000,000 units of GameCube hardware across Europe. I think that we are better prepared for the launch of the next console into your market and will have prepared 20 titles for day one for Europe.

I was involved in the hardware design of this product and it was designed with a wish that it’s going to be played by whole families, including small children and old people, so the ideal situation is that the GameCube will be played by small children with their grandpas and grandmas together.

We really want the GameCube to become the platform for which unique games are introduced, so we have made the hardware architecture so that it will become the most effective and efficient machine for games developers to make software for.

To start with in Europe, we are going to introduce the violet and black hardware, but because we want as many people as possible to like it, as well as a variety of different people, we will soon add the orange colour and we plan to increase colour variation later on. I think this kind of compact body with a variety of colours well suited for Europe, rather than, you know, a black, gigantic body that is fearful to small dogs!

Question: Can you reassure us that Mario Kart for GameCube is on track and can you explain what difficulties you have had in improving upon the Mario Kart formula.

Miyamoto: Mario Kart is one of the titles that occupies my time most and it bothers my heart currently. The situation is that we are having a series of meetings about Mario Kart for GameCube and we have come the point where we will be making some drastic changes to the last games. That’s all I can tell you I’m afraid, but I hope to show you much more at this year’s E3 show. By the way, Sonic the Hedgehog might be one of the drivers!

Question: How do you intend to ensure that third-party develops make full use of the GameCube’s unique controller and GBA connectivity?

Miyamoto: The Nintendo GameCube has very appealing features. Game Boy Advance connectivity and good controllers we created, but this doesn’t mean that others can’t come up with very good ideas or applications to make use of them. There will, in the future, be many more new applications for the GameCube controller and its connectivity to GBA. For example, we are releasing GBA carts with tilt functionality, like that shown in the new Kirby game. Also, if you own the GameCube version of a game that features link-up with the GBA, you will not need to but a separate cartridge.