Shigeru Miyamoto Makes Surprise Appearance at Developer Roundtable Event
The master himself discusses this year's Nintendo showcase with select media members; announces new Zelda game for Wii
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When I sat in on Nintendo's Developer Roundtable event late today amongst a select few members of the press, there wasn't a single thought in my mind that could have predicted what happened next. As host Tim Leary, of the Nintendo Treehouse, announced who our guest would be and he walked through the door, I witnessed the sound of roughly 80 jaws hitting the concrete floor. Our guest developer was none other than the God of game development himself, Mr. Shigeru Miyamoto.
The following recap speaks for itself. It is essentially a somewhat paraphrased version of Miyamoto's words, as translated by Leary (even with the translation, these guys speak way too fast!). Throughout this roundtable, it was clear that the very charismatic Miyamoto was extremely enthusiastic about these game projects. An obvious gamer at heart, he giggled at the live competitive gameplay in New Mario Bros. Wii and took part in the gameplay to show us some of the parts he likes best. Mr. Miyamoto is truly an inspiration to the gaming community.
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[Introductions and so forth]
As you know, I have been very involved with many of Nintendo's games, including those at this year's E3. However, I have also been working on a side project this year. At Nintendo, we have been thinking about different applications for the DS platform. Think of how interesting it would be if your DS were able to determine your geographic location and provide you with a variety of relevant information. Similarly, we have been testing the DS concept in a school program to help monitor individual students' progress.
[Impromptu transition onto the topic of New Mario Bros. Wii]
[New Mario Bros. Wii being played in the background]
I have been working on Mario titles for over 20 years now. One thing we had been wanting to do with the franchise for a long time is to recreate the single player feel of Mario for multiple simultaneous players. We have experimented with this idea before, but it always eventually fell off the table for various reasons. One of the reasons why we were finally able to accomplish this is because the Wii has the processing power to do it. Now, you will notice that we have recreated the familiar gameplay while introducing new tricks. For instance, Yoshi can now ingest fireballs and hammers and spit them back out. Also notice that the camera pans out as players get separated. The game will include about 80 courses. [Miyamoto starts playing his favorite level]. We'll cheat here to show you one of the new suits we have in the game: the penguin suit. This suit allows players to throw ice balls and freeze their enemies in blocks of ice, which can then be used as stepping blocks. The penguin can also glide quite easily across frozen surfaces. [End play]. This has been a really fun game to work on and it certainly is fun to play. One of the nice things about this game is that a novice player can join an advanced player in the same adventure and play together at the same level, thereby attracting new players to video games.
[Start Super Mario Galaxy 2]
A second Mario title was announced for the Wii earlier today. Nintendo doesn't typically create two similar franchises for a platform but this is a first. The original Mario Galaxy title was a first experiment with spherical worlds and gravity. We felt that there was a lot of ideas and potential there that we couldn't fit into the original game. So, we started on a soft of Galaxy 1.5. As we were working on this, the team got really excited and we ended up with a game that is 95% to 99% completely new content. In Galaxy 2, we have different goals, different item placement, the inclusion of Yoshi this time, and the use of a drill to get through solid spaces. The decision was made to delay Galaxy 2 until next year due to this year's release of New Mario Bros. Wii, and we will instead spend some time refining the game for the next year.
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