Q: I'd like to ask you about where Nintendo is going from here. Is that
OK?
Miyamoto: Famitsu, in its 'Let's talk about games corner' once featured
me saying that if developers want to make CD-ROM games, they should go
with the PlayStation. So lots of readers misunderstood and thought I was
going to develop games for the PlayStation. I'm going to have to be
careful what I say to you!
Q: No, don't say that! What are your feelings about the last two years?
Miyamoto: I work for Nintendo, so I think we showed some good things,
but maybe not enough variety. I don't think we had enough titles.
Q: You don't think you had enough titles, but I think the long gaps
between releases were damaging.
Miyamoto: Last year, between Starfox and Yoshi's Story we didn't produce
enough Nintendo (first-party) titles. It would have been good to be able
to sell Zelda and F-Zero last year. But we showed some kind of
throughput; I'm just sorry it wasn't more.
Q: I have the feeling that there'll be some really big titles in 1998.
Miyamoto: Nintendo's sales department agrees. The production division,
at any rate, will be releasing hardware (the 64DD), so when that happens
I hope users will feel relieved that they didn't give up on us.
Q: The N64 seems to have had a bit of a hard time in Japan.
Miyamoto: Yes, we haven't really been able to sell it in Japan, but I'm
not that worried. People ask "why are you so confident" but software is
selling very well in the States and people here worry because that news
doesn't reach them here in Japan. But we've sold over 10,000,000
machines worldwide.
Q: So you think there's reason to be confident?
Miyamoto: From now and over the next year, people will be able to use
the intervals between releases to save enough pocket money to buy
software. The hardware's matured over the past two years, as has the
software. But I can't necessarily say we're going to be selling a lot of
software before Christmas.
ZELDA
Q: Zelda is highly-anticipated, isn't it?
Miyamoto: It has Mario-esque elements, with movie-like drama. It has the
same kind of expression as a movie.
Q: I'm surprised it almost has movie-like production values.
Miyamoto: Well, it's not exactly like a movie, but uses dynamic
scenarios.
Q: Did you use that kind of approach in Mario?
Miyamoto: Hmmm, it looks better than, say, Resident Evil or Final
Fantasy VII, with the combination of graphics and content. I'm not very
good at PR! Don't write what I just said! (laughs)
Q: What about the mood?
Miyamoto: You get a real impression of immersion, as if you're really in
the game's world. The movement, thanks to the 3D stick, is very fluid
and smooth. We've put all of our best ideas into Zelda.
F-ZERO
Miyamoto: F-Zero's strongest characteristic is the sense of speed. Also,
there are lots of opponents on screen with you.
Q: There are going to be 30 racers, right?
Miyamoto: Yes, and besides, on the hard setting, up to 20 cars can be
retired after crashes. So you can place pretty much anywhere on the
scale of 1st to 30.
Q: Are the courses varied?
Miyamoto: Yes, there are jumps, a sudden-death element, and so forth.
And you can die if you skid out of the pipe (laughs).
Q: Is there a lot of variety in the cars?
Miyamoto: You can eventually select from 30 vehicles, and you can tune
them up, adding elements to the gameplay.
Thanks goes to Famitsu for this interview.
THIS INTERVIEW WAS A COPY FROM IGN64.COM