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Miyamoto 'Banned' From Talking About Hobbies
walshy007 writes "After Shigeru Miyamoto developed a love of puzzles, the "brain-training" software that has proved to be an international "killer application" on the Nintendo DS console was born.
He became interested in taking more exercise, and Wii Fit was created. He took up music lessons, and Wii Music was the result.
Now, according to sources at Nintendo, the games designer has been banned by the company from speaking publicly about his hobbies."
..guess we'll just see how long Nintendo manages to keep him around with ridiculous policies like this in place..
I guess wii Bukakke didn't quite catch on as well as the other Japanese classics did.
What most people don't know is that he has a strange fetish for women dressed up in furry animal costumes. I wonder what the next game would be like?
So the next game will be about somebody who has been banned from talking by his corporate overlords.
The first rule about hobbies is, you don't talk about hobbies.
It's true I tell you, feller at work's next door neighbour read it in the paper.
I'm barred from talking about my hobbies by my employer as well.
Might have something to do with all the razor blades and dismembered animal parts.
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218 words. 6 paragraphs, 3 of which are in TFS. No source. No links. Few details.
I do agree, that is an interesting tidbit there, but it's an idle story at best. Fark material IMO.
No comprende? Let me type that a little slower for you...
If knowing Miyamoto's hobbies is enough to scoop Nintendo, then why can't competitors even touch his track record?
I think Nintendo is confusing ideas with implementations. Having ideas is great. Anyone can have ideas. In fact, they're a dime in quantities of tens of thousands. The problem is getting those ideas implemented. And without Miyamoto-san's insight into the implementation, I sincerely doubt competitors are going to be able to get ahead of Nintendo.
This seems like a case where Miyamoto should ignore his employer and just do his own thing. Unfortunately, I think he's too nice to take a stand on this. He will probably go along with his employer's request. Thankfully, however, I imagine that this requirement will loosen and fall off with time.
Which can only be good for fans. I can't speak for anyone else, but I have found the stories behind the development of Miis and Wii Fit to be fascinating. (And hilarious. "You guys are useless!" :-P)
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Actually, we already had Star Fox.
And Animal Crossing.
I don't think a game based on Hobbits would do that well.
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Clearly Nintendo is looking to base their future games on his personal interests:
"Super Eating Out Mario Bros"
"Wacky Workout"
"The Chronicles of Shopping"
"Watching Reruns on TV Fiesta"
"World of Internet Porn Surfing"
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
American corporations often put limitations on what their employees can say to the press. Every major corporation has had a policy on what statements the company can make, and even then, only certain employees are allowed to talk to the press. Violation of such a policy is grounds for termination. It is pretty standard.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Well, one thing that business has taught me is how little value ideas really have.
I know it's heretical to say this, but ideas just aren't that valuable. Discernment, discipline, patience, timing, creativity, craftsmanship, relationships with vendors and customers, and of course money have to be added before an idea generates a single penny of profit.
Take the idea of a car racing game with cute characters driving. Miyamoto's gone to that well multiple times, but nobody else has scored big with it, even though it isn't a copyrightable or patentable thing. He's got a team that gets the details right.
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What if his hobbies are running around Tokyo carjacking, beating up ho's, and shooting wildly?
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
No one ever thought of doing puzzle games before.
And no ever thought of doing work-out games before (we actually own the XBox virtual personal trainer game that my wife used to work out with).
And no one ever did music games before.
And since when was Wii Music a big hit? I thought it hadn't even been released yet, and all the hype has been about Rock Band 2 and Guitar Hero: World Tour.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
There was a DS homebrew contest and I remember reading about a girl who won the contest by developing a game in which you stroked the fluffy parts of a bunny with your stylus just right to make the bunny happy, and then it exploded into a bunch of butterflies. The developer flat out said the game was a simulation of getting a girl off. I'm sure a similar homebrew game for the Wiimote will eventually come out.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
And here I thought that it is the next logical evolutionary step for the Wii.
http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=227
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Don't forget playing with his dogs (Nintendogs) and gardening (actually where his idea for Pikmin came from).
A lot of people know he does this, so many journalists like ask him what he's doing in his free time and then try to parse his words to figure out what future new games he may be working on. If they really are quelling that, I'm not very surprised, given how secretive the company likes to be.
The next step is that Nintendo allows Miyamoto's hobbies to "accidentally" get leaked in order to get Microsoft and Sony to waste all their time.
Word on the street is that he's taken up knitting, and he's started a rock garden. Run with that, Xbox dev team!
Manager: "Please don't talk about your hobbies publicly."
Miyamoto: "OK"
Co-worker: "What was that about?"
Miyamoto: "They don't want me talking about my hobbies."
Co-worker: "They won't let Miyamoto talk about his hobbies."
[several layers of 'the telephone game' later]
"Miyamoto banned from talking about hobbies."
Exactly. The ideas in Miyamoto's games sometimes aren't particularly inspired (collect carrots in a garden?) and often aren't really important to the core gameplay. What makes Miyamoto's games unique and universally great is the incredible polish and attention to detail, his ability to see what doesn't work and call out bad ideas, and the well thought out and extensively tested gameplay mechanics used in his games.
As always, it's not the idea, it's the execution.
I guess there could be some brand dilution if others come out before Nintendo, but then, it's Nintendo. People pay attention to them whether their ideas are new, or whether they have been done before (Kinetic Combat was before Wii Fit, Guitar Hero was before Wii Music, and so on).
You still can't deny almost every single game [Miyamoto] comes up with stars Mario in some form or another.
Au contraire. The Nintendo fanboys are constantly complaining that Miyamoto has abandoned them because he has abandoned his old franchises such as Mario and Zelda. Miyamoto was only a producer on Galaxy, and he was barely involved in the development of New Super Mario Bros; I don't think he's made a Mario title in a decade or so.