The staff over at Edge were able to sit down with Nintendo's legendary game developer Shigeru Miyamoto, to discuss his latest piece of software: Wii Music, and his thoughts and ideas behind this controversial title. From this topic the conversation continues onto his thoughts and theories about video games, Nintendo's position in the market, and his approach to designing the games that we know and love. Lastly, he leaves his hope on what he believes his impact on the industry will be:

quote Miyamoto

When you one day retire, what do you want to be remembered for?
I often look at the pattern that we’ve seen with the Japanese manga industry and hope that I can have something like that.

If you look at the history of Japanese manga you have the very early manga artists like Osamu Tezuka, who really defined the style and continued to pioneer in that realm and draw new manga and created new styles along the way. I think the other key thing about them is that they continued drawing up until the day they died.

I would be happiest if people look back some day and say this is somebody who was there when videogames first started being created and he’s somebody who was continually creating new styles of play and was bringing new ideas to games and was a pioneer up until his dying day.

The last time we spoke with Shigeru Miyamoto, Nintendo’s future still hung in the balance.

Back then, Wii was codenamed Revolution, and Sony, with PS3 months from release, still dominated the game market. Today, the situation is very different, so much so that we hardly bat an eyelid when Miyamoto says: “To tell the truth, I have this big ambition for Wii Music, that it can eventually be something so influential that it might be able to influence what music means in the world.”

Brash from anyone else, such a statement can only be seen in the light of the massive changes Wii has wrought in the two years since its release, having asserted itself as an essential element of so many family living rooms. Wii Music is the latest game to emphasise this ethos, but its awkward centrepiece demonstration during Nintendo’s E3 2008 presentation exposed it to heavy criticism by many observers for being simplistic and a declaration of Nintendo’s disregard for core gamers.

Indeed, reviews of Wii Music have already been published by the time we meet Miyamoto, and many have not been complimentary. It’s probably best, however, not to think of Wii Music as a game. Miyamoto is, in fact, careful not to refer to it as anything other than just “software” during our interview. It’s not driven by scoring. There are no fail states. You simply play with it, your success down to how much you’re enjoying yourself and the quality of the noise you’re making.

Miyamoto is careful to reiterate that his teams are currently working on new Mario and Zelda games, and Wii Music is less an inconsequential piece of mainstream fluff than another piece of finely designed software that’s tuned to appeal to all. But it is another reminder that Nintendo is no longer the underdog company championed by gamers during the days of Revolution.

Akira_EX via edge-online.com »