In a pretty enlightening interview on EW.com, Shigeru Miyamoto openly says that he could design a game like Halo for the American market, but that it’s just not what he wants to do.
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Miyamoto says he tries to bring something new to the end-user experience, something that fans didn’t even know they wanted. That may sound a bit egotistical, but it makes perfect sense. Most people want a game that they’ve played before because they know it was fun, like someone saying they want a sci-fi FPS. But if developers always followed what the consumer wants, we would never get something like Katamari Damacy or the Wii.
That’s what Miyamoto was trying to say. It’s not like he thinks Halo is a simple game that anyone can design. It’s just not his style to do something like that.
As for other bits in the interview worth noting, one thing that concerns me is how he perceives the lack of enthusiasm for Zelda in Japan. He seems to think that the people playing the Wii don’t have the energy or time to play games that are that big.
A statement like this troubles me to no end. It sounds like he’s giving up on big games that all the hardcore users want, and is focusing on smaller games like Brain Age or Wii Sports. Don’t get me wrong, I loves me the Bowling, but that doesn’t mean I want to say goodbye to games like Metroid Prime or Zelda, either. I’m sure this was more of a light-hearted comment on the situation, and that Nintendo has no plan to stop making big, epic games, but when someone as important as Shigeru Miyamoto says that big games are not that popular anymore, you tend to think the worst.
And it’s always great to hear Miyamoto shit on other developers, saying that they should just focus on whether or not the player is having fun and smiling. Fuck market research and focus groups. If you can’t make someone smile while they play your game, you shouldn’t be a designer. That’s the kind of attitude that changes the very idea of business, and I love it.
Miyamoto then goes on to say he and Nintendo were disappointed with the results of their outsourcing the F-Zero and Star Fox properties to outside development houses, which is surprising. Star Fox Adventures was a miss, but if he’s talking about F-Zero GX, I have to completely disagree with him. GX is probably the best racing game on the GameCube, and one of the fastest racers I’ve ever seen in motion. Not sure why he would be disappointed with it.
But anyway, check out the rest of the interview at EW.com. And if anyone was wondering, no, it’s not called Super Paper Mario Bros. I’m not even sure Miyamoto worked on that game, seeing as how it was made by Intelligent Systems. Boo mainstream media.