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Metroid Designer Talks Metroid Prime II, EyeToy

Posted by simoniker on from the irish-metroid-featuring-shamus dept.

Thanks to C+VG for their interview with Yoshio Sakamoto, a key designer on the Metroid titles, and now manager of Nintendo's notable R&D1 development studio. He talks about Sony's EyeToy USB camera game ("...if it's quite a unique product it's a shame Nintendo didn't come up with that kind of idea"), Retro's in-development Metroid Prime sequel ("my involvement with Metroid Prime II is like my involvement with the first one - I am advising them as to what kind of flavor they have to adhere to, and the kind of storylines possible"), and makes it clear that Nintendo are actively working on follow-up hardware ("Nintendo is always working on the next generation of systems, be it handheld or console game machines.")

4 of 19 comments (clear)

  1. Metroid Creator? by Locky · · Score: 5, Informative

    The creator of Metroid is none other than Gunpei Yokoi, who left Nintendo in 1996.

    He was killed in a car accident in 1997.

    1. Re:Metroid Creator? by simoniker · · Score: 4, Informative

      Hey - you're quite right, Yokoi is generally thought of as the 'father' of Metroid, so I've changed the article to reflect this. I believe that Sakamoto was the character designer on the original Metroid, though, and according to Dylan Cuthbert, who's worked at Nintendo in Japan:

      "[Metroid] has always been developed by R&D1 (the dept. Gunpei Yokoi headed up) and designed by the teams who mostly make gameboy titles. Samus was thought up by a friend of mine called Yoshio Sakamoto who is also developing the latest gameboy version Fusion, and also helped direct Prime."

      Guess it all depends on producer vs. character designer vs. etc, but I think the amended text better reflects this. Thanks for the heads-up!

  2. Re:Eye Toy? by edwdig · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Perfect Dark originally had support for face mapping, but it was pulled after Columbine. You needed a GameBoy, the GameBoy camera, and the GBN64 transfer pak. The transfer pak and camera never really caught on, so not many people would've been able to use the feature if it was included.

    Nintendo did have some game called Talent Studio or something like that. Not sure of the details, but it's probably what you're thinking of. I remember you could create custom characters in it; I think that included mapping your face in somehow. But it seemed like a product that would only stand a chance of being successful in Japan.

  3. Eyetoy: Nothing new here by Stubtify · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Quite a unique product? My Intel USB video camera has had games based on it for at least 4 years. There's one with a ball that you hit by, well hitting the ball. Another equally stupid game had something to do with a ribbon I think.

    I really don't think the eyetoy can grab the attention of the (US) ps2 crowd very well unless sony comes up with a killer app for it. On the PC side this hasn't been gaming, but instead video conferencing. I'd pay $30-50 to be able to see family halfway across the country, but to hit a ball onscreen by waving my arm, I'd have to pass.