14 DAY TRIAL // Everyone's familiar with Nintendo games developer Shigeru Miyamoto. He's the father of Mario and Donkey Kong games, developing the games that would later sell the consoles. At that time, Mario wasn't even called Mario. It was Jump Man. He's a cool bloke every time there's an interview to be done as well. Until recently that is. In an interview with Newsweek's N'Gai Croal, Miyamoto states with all his heart that he's had enough with third party Wii title developers using "fourth-string teams" on carrying out the actual job of developing Wii games. Not that they're doing a lousy job or anything like that, but Miyamoto wants the best. The interview fragments were selected by 1UP:
"If there's only one piece of advice that I could give to the managers of third party companies, it would be that a lot of times it seems that when they're putting games out on Nintendo hardware, those games are being developed by their third-string team or their fourth-string team. Maybe that's because they see those products as being unique projects or somewhat smaller-scale projects. But when Nintendo puts out a title that is designed to really support and sell its hardware, that title is always developed by one of our number one teams. And so I think that when it comes to the question of trying to compete with our software, I would really like to see the parties try to do that with their number one teams rather than with the third- or fourth-string teams."
That's the spirit! Even though the Wii sells great and its titles even better, Miyamoto whips everyone into shape. What, he wouldn't want them getting cocky or anything? Anyway, later on during the interview, Miyamoto reveals exactly what he means by this and why the famous developer thinks that the job doesn't always have to be done by the book, but even take some risks and surprise the world with ever more original Wii titles:
"I think that once third parties are able to look at these examples, take their great technical know-how, and combine that with some ideas that they have about how to achieve new ideas that can only be achieved on that particular piece of hardware, then I think they're going to have the chance to really see some great success. But ultimately, it depends not so much on trying to add new elements to existing games; it really depends on the posture of the creators and the managers of those third parties to encourage them to take some risks and come up with some new and unique ideas."
Wow! And I thought Japanese developers were uptight and stuff, giving strict orders for no one to do anything but what they're told. It seems I was wrong.