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Nintendo Businesses Entertainment Games

BusinessWeek Interviews Miyamoto 59

Posted by Zonk from the otherwise-known-as-link's-dad dept.
TecnaDigit writes "This week, BusinessWeek Online features a short but sophisticated interview with Shigeru Miyamoto. Mr. Miyamoto discusses the past, present, and future of gaming (concerning both his games and games in general) as well a few interesting tidbits of his personal life." From the article: "Whether it's a new game or a sequel, we want anyone to be able to play right away. That's why I think Rubik's Cube was so brilliant. I saw it for the first time at a toy convention in Japan in the early 1980s. The moment you see a Rubik's Cube, you know you're supposed to twist the pieces. And it's beautifully designed. Even if you've never handled one, you want to pick it up and try it. And once you do that, it's hard to walk away until you've solved it. "
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BusinessWeek Interviews Miyamoto More

BusinessWeek Interviews Miyamoto

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  • Error in linked article (Score:4, Informative)

    by I(rispee_I(reme ( 310391 ) on Thursday November 03, 2005 @06:45PM (#13946226) Journal
    I quote:

    his Super Mario Bros. -- the world's hottest-selling game ever -- was the first with a scrolling screen, which expanded the playing space vertically, not just horizontally

    End quote. I don't believe Super Mario Brothers ever scrolled vertically. Perhaps my copy was defective. Or maybe they're talking about 2 or 3...

  • A Legend (Score:5, Interesting)

    by November 1, 2005 ( 927710 ) on Thursday November 03, 2005 @06:57PM (#13946325) Journal
    On a somewhat related note, the new Mario game for the DS looks great! I hadn't thought about buying a PSP or a DS but seeing this video [nintendo.com] of it running, I am tempted to run out and buy one. Miyamoto is a master of making games that are simple enough to just sit down and play but engaging enough to keep your attention for hours. That's why I think the Nintendo Revolution is going to be such a great system - the new controller is going to open up so many new options, that I have no doubt Miyamoto will take full advantage of.

    I know, I sound like a fanboy here but this is the first time in a long time that I've been really excited about video games. It felt like this generation of consoles weren't anything we hadn't seen before - just brighter colors, flashier logos, nothing really new. I'm thinking that the Revolution is going to feel significantly different.

  • Here's an interesting tidbit:

    From TFA:

    I've always thought that games would eventually break free of the confines of a TV screen to fill an entire room. But I would rather not say anything more about that.

    Unless he meant the Virtual Boy [wikipedia.org], I wonder what he has in mind?
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:Really, I don't think it matters now (Score:4, Insightful)

      by RoadDoggFL ( 876257 ) on Thursday November 03, 2005 @07:51PM (#13946694) Homepage
      The only thing I disagree with here (before I trailed off and clicked Reply) is that people seem to think that Nintendo has decided to stop compteting for the "top spot" of the console wars or that they've abandoned the hordcore/traditional gamer.

      No, the only thing Nintendo has abandoned or stopped doing is playing Sony's game. They're going for the same market and more and they have their sights set on the #1 spot, only they're going after it from a different angle. I think it's refreshing to see Nintendo thinking up a completely new and original mentality to use in approaching the next generation of consoles to match with whatever new and original content they come up with this time around that the other guys will no doubt copy next time around.
      • I think you are right on this one... Nintendo wants to be number 1 not by beating the competition, but rather by not being in the same category as they are. I think they would like to win by having a different enough experience and a good enough product with a nice range of must have exclusive apps (not hard to do with a unique and original control scheme and what is promising to be a healthy online experience) that every one has a Revolution AND EITHER an XBox or a PS3.

        The GameCube was almost that product

        • Nintendo wants to be number 1 not by beating the competition, but rather by not being in the same category as they are.

          I think it's more like this:

          Nintendo wants to win being the smart, nice, fairly attractive brunette that ends up in a meaningful, committed relationship with someone who shares a mutual love; Sony and Microsoft are the false-blond sluts with breast implants and whoreish outfits trying to get the attention of any slobbering sack of testosterone who walks by, and end up married with 2 kids to

          • Re:Really, I don't think it matters now (Score:1, Funny)

            by Anonymous Coward
            "Nintendo wants to win being the smart, nice, fairly attractive brunette that ends up in a meaningful, committed relationship with someone who shares a mutual love; Sony and Microsoft are the false-blond sluts with breast implants and whoreish outfits trying to get the attention of any slobbering sack of testosterone who walks by, and end up married with 2 kids to a deadbeat dad (because she got pregnant), collecting welfare checks to support her own drinking habit."

            So you're saying the best course of a

    • Re:Really, I don't think it matters now (Score:5, Insightful)

      by FLAGGR ( 800770 ) on Thursday November 03, 2005 @08:09PM (#13946797)
      It's not that Nintendo doesn't want to compete - it's that they're not playing cat and mouse with Sony and MS. Honestly, all this talk about specs, throwing out random numbers people are woo-ed by but don't mean much to them in reality (ooo my machine has 3 cores, ooo well mine has 1 core +7 spe thingies, beat that!)

      Honestly, all the theoretical numbers, the teraflops, the floatingpoint-operations-per-second's, it mean's nothing. Well okay it means somthing, but remember the GCN launch? Nintendo didn't go into the nitty gritty about the hardware because the consumers don't need to know. Developers don't even need to know. Why? Theoretical limits are just that: theoretical. When Nintendo released benchmarks of the GCN, did they do what the ps2 and xbox did, for example releasing a polygon-per-second count of just rendering nothing but flat triangles? No. They released numbers based on what you could achieve in a game, with AI, sound, texturing etc, i.e. realistic numbers. The hardware platforms are so different, that one measure means virtually nothing. Sure, the PS2 can kick all the consoles and pretty much any PC at flat polygon fillrate, but it has pretty shitty graphics compared to the gamecube (metroid prime, or for a crossplatform example, RE4)

      Nintendo is simply better at engineering things anyways. The GCN had something like a 400mhz cpu, and probably the lowest "numbers" of all the consoles, yet it is equal to the xbox (well, some parts not so much (shaders), but other things its better at (particles is a good example, but thats based on a lot of factors, namely its FP performance)) It's also in a much smaller housing, and doesn't sound like a windtunnel like the xbox. How did they manage this? They engineered it better. Microsoft took PC parts, threw them in a black box and called it a days work (hell, the controllers are USB, the connection has just been physically changed to not fit into normal USB slots)

      Sony and MS are going for the whole shebang, all of digital entertainment. Sony has their music and movie divisions influencing it, and their consumer tech (mp3 players etc) all fighting to make the ps3 a super DRM convergance machine. Microsoft has their Windows Media Centre to sell, and whats to be the software king (things like their music store, the xbl store etc) What does Nintendo want to do? Make games. Their online model doesn't have a music store. It has demo's you can download for your DS. Old school roms you can buy (please let them be cheap) etc etc. Nintendo is focused squarely on games. The Revolution won't be a multimedia powerhouse. I doubt it'll play DVD's out of the box. Nintendo is appealing to developers, by offering them a new (awesome) method of control, but letting them use the old one (the classic controller shell) if they are too afraid. The devkit enviroment is supposedly nearly the same as the GCN, which if you've ever programmed for a console (I did a bit of DS) you know is a very good thing. The PS3 and xbox360, with their new architectures supposedly are hard to develop for (and to add to that, the current devkits for the ps3 are supposedly horrid, typical Sony style)


      So, is Nintendo backing away from competition and trying to find a niche market, or find a new group of consumers? No. Although they still want the new consumers, they want the old crowd too. They just are more focused on the gaming aspect of consoles than their competitors, which I believe will let them win out in the end.
      • I agree. It's really all about the games. Although Xbox (and now 360) will have vastly superior online services to the other consoles, I still find myself playing mostly PS2 titles because that's the only place where I can get my Squeenix fix (FF games, etc.). I think the Xbox Live Arcade service is cool, not because of its features, but because it gets me access to great casual games like Geometry Wars (which is amazingly cool, I call it "modern retro").

        That said, though, how each company designs and marke

        • Re:Really, I don't think it matters now (Score:1, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward
          There is a growing realization being made by many third party publishers and developers that may end up helping Nintendo attract a decent ammount of development. What developers have realized is that there is essentially two strategies that you can use to make a successful game, you can produce a conventional (standard) genre game (FPS) and throw money and development resources at it to simply make a better game then your competition, or you can make a far more unique game (either through making a new genre
          • If I had mod points (and were allowed to mod conversations where I've posted), I'd mod you up. :)

            Yup, a lot of folks don't realize that even though Nintendo isn't considered top dog anymore (in terms of console market share, etc.), they still make a hefty profit, due to shrewd strategies like you mentioned above.

            On the other hand, you've got Sony who almost seems to bully developers (a platform that's hard to design for, lack of documentation, etc.), simply because they know they have an enormous user base
    • Enter key... Please.... Use it....
    • (I even still fancy a Colecovision - I think it has the perfect LadyBug conversion - say a prayer for me).

      What's wrong with ladybug on the Coleco? I'd probably say that MouseTrap is a better game for the Coleco though. The first time I read your post I thought you were claiming the 2600 was superior to the Coleco, but my misunderstanding.

      But look, I think what you desire is gameplay (and posibly of the pick up and play variety). And thus I suggest you buy a DS. Get Warioware (Touched! or the original)

  • The Genius of Miyamoto... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Not-a-Neg ( 743469 ) on Thursday November 03, 2005 @09:51PM (#13947335)
    "I also redesigned the Revolution's controller to look more like a regular TV remote, so anyone who saw it would know instantly how to use it, and so they wouldn't think they had to always stash it away."


    It all makes since now. I understood the part about it being like a remote to provide a familiar control method for non/new-gamers, but the intention of making something people won't be ashamed of and hide away when not in use is pure genius. I have remotes lying all around, but stow gamepads away in a drawer, even though they're wireless.

  • - In the future, what do you think video games will be like?
    - It's convenient to make games that are played on TVs. But I always wanted to have a custom-sized screen that wasn't the typical four-cornered cathode-ray-tube TV. I've always thought that games would eventually break free of the confines of a TV screen to fill an entire room. But I would rather not say anything more about that.

    Nintendo's next console: the holodeck!
  • ..Nintendo would come out with some Viva La Revolution! shirts with Mario as Che.
  • You could have a console with the greatest specs on the planet but if the games made for it are below average or just plain bad then it won't sell.

    Case in point the NEC Turbografx-16 (aka the PC-Engine), possibly one of the most successful game consoles in Asia with a game library exceeding 800+ titles "failed" in the United States. This is because the company released only the more average or mediocre titles in the US instead of the more groundbreaking titles that made the system a success back in Japan.
  • I found his love for his rubik's cube a little disturbing, but at least that explains the name of the Gamecube...

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