Miyamoto talks hardware power and game difficulty in classic 1998 interview

The following comes from a newly-translated Japanese magazine (Game Hiryu) interview with Miyamoto that took place in 1998.

Miyamoto: You’re starting to see developers ask whether interesting, satisfying game development really lies in this march towards ever-increasingly precise and realistic technology. Take the popular Tamagotchi, for instance. It doesn’t have any powerful technology. Its appeal and fun lies in a whole other realm. There’s something there that can make games richer, and I think that will be a theme for developers in the future.

GH: Along with “realism”, I think the other big standard by which a game is judged today is it’s difficulty.

Miyamoto: Difficulty will forever be a topic of contention. (laughs) Lowering the difficulty gives more players access, but it completely ignores the dedicated players—particularly those that played previous games, if it’s a series. It’s best to balance these two sides’ interests, but that doesn’t always happen.

You know, you often hear people say that video games are just for killing time, but if that’s really all they were, there’s no way their popularity would have lasted this long. Video games have endured because of their immersive quality. Up till now, the main way games have immersed players is by having a high degree of replayability. And using a high difficulty level to raise the replayability has been what nearly all games have done.