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The legendary designer muses on Nintendo's competition and E3's competitive culture.
One of the big themes at this year’s E3 expo was connectivity. Microsoft has gone with an ‘all-in’ approach it's calling SmartGlass – aka great material for Trey Parker and Matt Stone – while Sony is pushing Vita connectivity across titles like PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale and LittleBigPlanet 2. With the Wii U's dual screens thrown into the mix, it’s an unusually heated race for Nintendo, a company used to running on an entirely different track paved with balance boards and wrist straps.
One would assume Shigeru Miyamoto would veto discussions around Nintendo’s competition. It had been a tough couple of days by the time we interviewed the legendary creator of Super Mario Bros. et al; Nintendo’s press conference failed to ignite thanks to a peculiarly dry presentation and a dearth of surprises, and online commentary had not been kind. This E3 was not the time for controversy.
But, under the fluorescent lights, against a pounding dubstep soundtrack, Mr. Miyamoto sits up and gives us a big smile.
“In the past when we’ve introduced stuff like motion control or touch screen control with the Nintendo DS, it typically would take a few years for other companies bring them into their own offerings,” he says. “The fact that one year out when we first introduced the concept of Wii U, we’re already seeing other companies trying to move in that same direction, suggests there’s a tremendous amount of possibility in what we’ve shown so far.”
It’s a heartening – if idealistic – take. But Mr. Miyamoto also believes that Nintendo is in a much stronger position to offer dual experiences than its competitors.
“We have a long history of creating these kinds of experiences," he says. "Even going back as far as our early experiments long ago between the portable gaming machines and the home console.”
Mr. Miyamoto believes that these days, our living room ecosystems are far more accommodating.
“The challenges we experienced at that time – not everyone had that complete ecosystem and hardware environment, so we couldn’t have those experiences be made available to our entire user base.”
Whereas with the Wii U, the experience can be had straight out of the box.
“It has the definitive advantage (because) it’s coupled with our experience with creating unique gameplay for this very specific type of ecosystem.”
Mr. Miyamoto is cautious with his wording on the subject of other company’s software efforts – “everyone has their own unique ideas” – but does voice his concerns over the medium’s violent landscape.
“Sometimes I get worried about the continued reliance on making games that are so centered around guns, and that there are so many of these games," he says. "I have a hard time imagining – particularly for young generations of gamers – how they sit down and play and interact with that.”
Mr. Miyamoto says Nintendo is still focused on provide a safe environment for kids, particularly in an online space. The company is currently preparing community management systems for the Miiverse, building on the lessons they learned around moderating user-generated content for Flipnote Studio on the DSi.
“Previous forms of media, like books, made it easy for parents to know and understand what they’re buying for their children. With the transition into digital mediums it becomes more difficult for parents to have a full grasp of what’s going on. From a game developer’s standpoint it’s important to take that into account.”
As the dubstep loops around again, we ask how Mr. Miyamoto feels about being ‘Mr. Nintendo’ at an expo with such an aggressively competitive culture at its core.
“It’s something that’s tough for me to objectively look at, and I think to me, what’s most important, is that I don’t betray the trust that people have in me. At a show like this, it’s my job to show we’re all having fun. People come to E3 and they want to talk about competition and who won the show, and all these companies combating one another.
"But what we’re meant to be doing is bringing fun to the world. So rather than focusing on competition, I feel it’s my job to go up on stage and show how I can bring fun to the world by having fun myself.”
One of the big themes at this year’s E3 expo was connectivity. Microsoft has gone with an ‘all-in’ approach it's calling SmartGlass – aka great material for Trey Parker and Matt Stone – while Sony is pushing Vita connectivity across titles like PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale and LittleBigPlanet 2. With the Wii U's dual screens thrown into the mix, it’s an unusually heated race for Nintendo, a company used to running on an entirely different track paved with balance boards and wrist straps.
One would assume Shigeru Miyamoto would veto discussions around Nintendo’s competition. It had been a tough couple of days by the time we interviewed the legendary creator of Super Mario Bros. et al; Nintendo’s press conference failed to ignite thanks to a peculiarly dry presentation and a dearth of surprises, and online commentary had not been kind. This E3 was not the time for controversy.
But, under the fluorescent lights, against a pounding dubstep soundtrack, Mr. Miyamoto sits up and gives us a big smile.
“In the past when we’ve introduced stuff like motion control or touch screen control with the Nintendo DS, it typically would take a few years for other companies bring them into their own offerings,” he says. “The fact that one year out when we first introduced the concept of Wii U, we’re already seeing other companies trying to move in that same direction, suggests there’s a tremendous amount of possibility in what we’ve shown so far.”
It’s a heartening – if idealistic – take. But Mr. Miyamoto also believes that Nintendo is in a much stronger position to offer dual experiences than its competitors.
“We have a long history of creating these kinds of experiences," he says. "Even going back as far as our early experiments long ago between the portable gaming machines and the home console.”
Mr. Miyamoto believes that these days, our living room ecosystems are far more accommodating.
“The challenges we experienced at that time – not everyone had that complete ecosystem and hardware environment, so we couldn’t have those experiences be made available to our entire user base.”
Whereas with the Wii U, the experience can be had straight out of the box.
“It has the definitive advantage (because) it’s coupled with our experience with creating unique gameplay for this very specific type of ecosystem.”
Mr. Miyamoto is cautious with his wording on the subject of other company’s software efforts – “everyone has their own unique ideas” – but does voice his concerns over the medium’s violent landscape.
“Sometimes I get worried about the continued reliance on making games that are so centered around guns, and that there are so many of these games," he says. "I have a hard time imagining – particularly for young generations of gamers – how they sit down and play and interact with that.”
Mr. Miyamoto says Nintendo is still focused on provide a safe environment for kids, particularly in an online space. The company is currently preparing community management systems for the Miiverse, building on the lessons they learned around moderating user-generated content for Flipnote Studio on the DSi.
“Previous forms of media, like books, made it easy for parents to know and understand what they’re buying for their children. With the transition into digital mediums it becomes more difficult for parents to have a full grasp of what’s going on. From a game developer’s standpoint it’s important to take that into account.”
As the dubstep loops around again, we ask how Mr. Miyamoto feels about being ‘Mr. Nintendo’ at an expo with such an aggressively competitive culture at its core.
“It’s something that’s tough for me to objectively look at, and I think to me, what’s most important, is that I don’t betray the trust that people have in me. At a show like this, it’s my job to show we’re all having fun. People come to E3 and they want to talk about competition and who won the show, and all these companies combating one another.
"But what we’re meant to be doing is bringing fun to the world. So rather than focusing on competition, I feel it’s my job to go up on stage and show how I can bring fun to the world by having fun myself.”
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