Techland Interview with Shigeru Miyamoto!

Techland: Your career with Nintendo actually started a little bit before with Donkey Kong, and we all know it became a big hit. But, when Donkey Kong became popular, why shift the focus to Mario? Why make him the focus of a new series of games? Why not a new character?

Shigeru Miyamoto: Well, the first reason is that Donkey Kong is just too darn big. And because he's so big, we actually created Donkey Kong Junior to try to come up with the same sort of character, but in a smaller, more manageable size. And as we were looking at an 8-bit size, Mario became a much easier character to use.

So that's the first reason. My original goal was that I really wanted to use Mario in a lot of different games. So, for example, in the original Punch-Out! you'll see Mario and Donkey Kong in the audience. You'll see Mario is the referee in Tennis [a 1984 Nintendo Entertainment System game]. And then it became taking Mario and Luigi both and putting them in different situations in various games, and was the direction that I decided to take.

T: Do you see yourself as Mario?

SM: [laughs] Yeah, I'm a little embarrassed but Mario is sort of my doppelgänger.

T: On that note, it was obviously a big evolution was when Nintendo went to 3D graphics with Super Mario 64. What was the hardest part about that transition? Did you have to play-test it differently and educate the design team about how the ideas might work?

SM: For Nintendo, Mario 64 was a big leap for us. Of course, 3D technology had been used in movies and other arenas, but not in any interactive arena. And so, our focus was "How can we take this 3D environment and implement it in a way that works in our world?" And I told people that there are other people working with these 3D environments but, as far as games, we are the pioneers. This is the frontier for us. Another thing that we considered when we were going into the 3D environment was that, of course, people were used to the familiar, side-scrolling Mario territory.

Anyone could pick it up and play [Super Mario Bros.] And everyone knew what they were getting into. But, when it moved into the 3D realm, of course, the perception was that things had changed and that it might be difficult to play. And so, it seemed that we were going to lose some customers who might just think, "I don't know what that is." That was too much for me to bear.

And so we really focused for many years on doing this in a way that's accessible. We've always had that focus and I think the pinnacle of our efforts right now is [Super Mario] Galaxy 2. That game was the result of a lot of focusing on how can we make a game that is challenging and familiar yet accessible and playable by everyone? We did that by lots of focus testing and keeping that [accessibility] at the forefront of our minds when moving forward. And I myself played it over and over and over.

T: Do you have favorite parts about the re-mastered editions of the older games?

SM: Well, I look back and play some of these games and there are a lot of places where, to be honest, I'm a little embarrassed. I look at Super Mario 3, and was like, "This was it?! This is what we thought was good enough?" That being said, I do have new understandings of that work. The balance in that game is what it needed to be at that time. It really was. And so, even seeing all the limitations, I'm very happy with what we created and I wouldn't change it.

T: It's like a jazz musician. You write a song, and other people may not play it. But when other people do play it, you know that you must have something good there. You're wearing Mario playing a saxophone on your shirt. I really liked Wii Music, because I like jazz a lot. I don't know how to play an instrument, but it made me feel like I almost could play an instrument. But given that you said you always start with Mario in thinking of a game design, why wasn't that a Mario music game? He's kind of the base of the formula, after all.

SM: It's a good question. And that's not to say if there's another Wii Music, Mario wouldn't make an appearance. If we get more people to understand what's going on in the game concept, then he might appear in the game. I don't know. But, mostly, Mario is really action-oriented.

In most of his games, it's about the player's actions on the screen or the player being able to experience the actions of Mario. He doesn't seem to fit that role of a musician for us right now. With the Mii characters that players create to represent themselves appearing in different games– again, like Mario does–I thought that idea of using Miis was a good fit. And so the user could feel that they were there playing the music....

T: Which makes them more connected. Yeah. OK.

And there's a lot of potential still in Wii Music, I think. Because we're going to change it up, a new interface is coming, and all of that.

T: How does it make you feel to know that these games you've helped produce are something that families connect over or that they share with each other? Not everybody who makes a game is lucky enough to be in that position. Do you feel honored? Or is there a responsibility?

SM: Well, yeah, there's a bit of responsibility. I'm a player too. So I'm always thinking about the player and how the player is enjoying their experience in the game. The goal is something that's accessible to all ages, of course, and all experience levels. With New Super Mario Bros. Wii last year, we were able to bring in a bunch of new people as well as satisfy some of our existing base.

With Wii Party, that's another game that's going to be something that's going to be played by a lot of different people. And so we're always wanting them to have fun, and we're always thinking about the user experience, and that's a Nintendo basic concept.

How are we appealing to the consumer? Because we're gamers as well. And personally, I want to create something that makes me look cool while I'm playing it. When I'm playing as Link in a Legend of Zelda game, that's something where I feel like I'm cool because I'm that guy.

T: Seeing as how we're at the 25th year anniversary of Super Mario Bros., what would you like to see in the next 25 years? Mario is obviously very connected to you. How would you like to see the torch passed on? Is other people creating Mario something you can think about?

SM: Whoa, I'll still be here in 25 years! [laughs] I mean, there are a lot of people at Nintendo who really get Mario. A lot of people I'm working with really understand who and what Mario is. Because Mario, as we've spoken about earlier, evolves with technology, it's hard to say where he's going to be in 25 years.