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Miyamoto on SMB's creation, Luigi's birth, retirement, DLC, Pikmin 3 and more
Miyamoto on creating Super Mario Bros....
"We realized people really wanted to be able to run faster. And we found very quickly that being able to run and jump and dodge enemies or holes that you might fall into would create sort of a sense of thrill. We focused on really trying to bring a little bit more of the physical energy, physical activity to the game itself.
What we found that was particularly interesting or fun was that in a game where really your ultimate goal is to try to avoid the enemies and avoid falling into the holes, when all of the sudden you become invincible, you get this sudden desire to sort of run through everything as fast as you can. And there were many people on the team who said, 'This is ridiculous. You shouldn't be invincible. This doesn't make a game.' And I said to them, 'Well what's interesting is the fact that even though you're invincible, you can still fall down a hole and die.' It creates this very strange dynamic in the game that's very fun. I had to persuade them."
How Luigi came to be...
"One of those constraints was that because of memory limitations, the second character had to be identical to the first character in appearance. And so we looked at that and said, 'Well even if we have the same character, we could potentially change the color of the character.' But again we were limited in the color palettes – we didn't have much in the way of additional colors that we could use. And so we looked at the turtles in that game. Their heads are sort of skin-toned, their shells are green, so what we could do is we could use the color palette from the turtle on this character. And so from those technical limitations we said 'Okay. We have these two characters. They look the same, other than the fact that their colors are different. Obviously they must be twins.' From there, we decided, 'Okay, they're twins and this other character [Luigi] must be the younger brother.'"
On working until he dies, preparing the team for a day when he's eventually not around anymore...
"I turn 61 this year, so I'm at an age where as I look around at people who work in different companies and they're all reaching an age where they're thinking about retirement, I guess people might expect me to be thinking of retiring. But at the same time, I look at the work that I'm doing, and the fun that I'm having – this is something that I can still continue to do for a long time." He smiles. "You know, possibly until I die. One thing that's very important for me is to make sure that Nintendo as a company can continue to create products even if I'm not there. So one of the things that I continually say to my teams is 'Pretend like I'm not here. I'm not going help you.'"
On always keeping the player in mind...
"I feel it is an important part of my job to continue to develop our games in a way that, even as we're spending more time and more energy creating these bigger more detailed worlds, we're still continuing to focus on how we can allow the user to creatively play within that space."
On utilizing DLC and new distribution methods...
"We're looking not just at creating a single product, but also at how we take advantage of those distribution methods, potentially creating additional downloadable content for those games. Going forward, we've sort of moved out of simply focusing on the technology and trying to completely create the worlds that had been imagined by the user. As we go forward, we'll start to see new ways that we can leverage technology to create new structures of play or leverage new means of distribution to the consumer."
On Pikmin 3 having multiple captains...
"With Pikmin 3, you'll have the ability to have three different captains or leaders of Pikmin groups and you can switch between them. So it sort of allows you to approach the game from a much more strategic position. The volume of work that you can get done within the timeframe has increased dramatically. And so that in and of itself really enhances the depth of strategy that's available to you in that game."
Full interview here
"We realized people really wanted to be able to run faster. And we found very quickly that being able to run and jump and dodge enemies or holes that you might fall into would create sort of a sense of thrill. We focused on really trying to bring a little bit more of the physical energy, physical activity to the game itself.
What we found that was particularly interesting or fun was that in a game where really your ultimate goal is to try to avoid the enemies and avoid falling into the holes, when all of the sudden you become invincible, you get this sudden desire to sort of run through everything as fast as you can. And there were many people on the team who said, 'This is ridiculous. You shouldn't be invincible. This doesn't make a game.' And I said to them, 'Well what's interesting is the fact that even though you're invincible, you can still fall down a hole and die.' It creates this very strange dynamic in the game that's very fun. I had to persuade them."
How Luigi came to be...
"One of those constraints was that because of memory limitations, the second character had to be identical to the first character in appearance. And so we looked at that and said, 'Well even if we have the same character, we could potentially change the color of the character.' But again we were limited in the color palettes – we didn't have much in the way of additional colors that we could use. And so we looked at the turtles in that game. Their heads are sort of skin-toned, their shells are green, so what we could do is we could use the color palette from the turtle on this character. And so from those technical limitations we said 'Okay. We have these two characters. They look the same, other than the fact that their colors are different. Obviously they must be twins.' From there, we decided, 'Okay, they're twins and this other character [Luigi] must be the younger brother.'"
On working until he dies, preparing the team for a day when he's eventually not around anymore...
"I turn 61 this year, so I'm at an age where as I look around at people who work in different companies and they're all reaching an age where they're thinking about retirement, I guess people might expect me to be thinking of retiring. But at the same time, I look at the work that I'm doing, and the fun that I'm having – this is something that I can still continue to do for a long time." He smiles. "You know, possibly until I die. One thing that's very important for me is to make sure that Nintendo as a company can continue to create products even if I'm not there. So one of the things that I continually say to my teams is 'Pretend like I'm not here. I'm not going help you.'"
On always keeping the player in mind...
"I feel it is an important part of my job to continue to develop our games in a way that, even as we're spending more time and more energy creating these bigger more detailed worlds, we're still continuing to focus on how we can allow the user to creatively play within that space."
On utilizing DLC and new distribution methods...
"We're looking not just at creating a single product, but also at how we take advantage of those distribution methods, potentially creating additional downloadable content for those games. Going forward, we've sort of moved out of simply focusing on the technology and trying to completely create the worlds that had been imagined by the user. As we go forward, we'll start to see new ways that we can leverage technology to create new structures of play or leverage new means of distribution to the consumer."
On Pikmin 3 having multiple captains...
"With Pikmin 3, you'll have the ability to have three different captains or leaders of Pikmin groups and you can switch between them. So it sort of allows you to approach the game from a much more strategic position. The volume of work that you can get done within the timeframe has increased dramatically. And so that in and of itself really enhances the depth of strategy that's available to you in that game."