BusinessWeek Interviews Miyamoto

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. "

Comments

A Legend

[November 1, 2005]

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 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.

Preparing for the Next Revolution (or 3 or 4?)

[blckbllr]

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, I wonder what he has in mind?

The Genius of Miyamoto...

[Not-a-Neg]

"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.

Software Makes the Machine!!!

[TheZorch]

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. For a time the PC-Engine was beating the Famicom (NES) in sales. The TG-16/PCE was a 8/16-bit hybrid with an 8-bit CPU and a 16-bit GPU capable of antialiasing. It was the first console to offer Stereo sound, some say the Sega Genesis was but the PCE came out a few years before it. The PCE was the first with CD-ROM which you added onto the console like the Sega-CD addon. For its time the TG-16/PCE was revolutionary in a day when the NES/Famicom was consider the highest in videogame technology. If only NEC and their development partner Hudson Soft used better judgement on what games to bring over to the US, the system probably would have done much better.

The same analogy goes for the next-gen system. They can be the fastest with the most powerful GPUs on the market but if the games are dull or just plain bad they won't sell well at all. The most fatal mistake companies can make is to underestimate the intellegence of their customers, and we gamers are very very smart.