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Interviews
The next interview came
to HTLOZ, courtesy of Lev
Grossman Producer
of TIME Digital.
Nintendo's
Shigeru Miyamoto The creator of Donkey Kong, Super Mario Brothers,
and The Legend of Zelda speaks out!
-April
23, 1999.
A heroic Italian plumber? A barrel-throwing
ape? A video game character who gets older as time goes by? Who
comes up with this stuff, anyway?
Shigeru Miyamoto, that's who. TIME Digital
(www.timedigital.com),
TIME magazine's technology publication, presents a new interview
with Shigeru Miyamoto, general manager of Nintendo's research
and development division and the creator of such classic games
as Donkey Kong, Super Mario Brothers, and The Legend of Zelda:
Ocarina of Time. Miyamoto speaks out on violence in video games,
where he gets his ideas, and what comes next.
Shigeru Miyamoto humbly calls himself a
salaryman. His colleagues, competitors and fans call him the
guru of video games. The creator of dozens of games over the
past 22 years, including such phenomenal successes as Donkey
Kong, Super Mario Brothers and, most recently, Legend of Zelda:
Ocarina of Time, he has become a legend in the industry. Miyamoto,
46, the general manager of Nintendo's research and development
division, spoke to TIME Digital in a meeting room in a sparse
gray building located in a quiet neighborhood in Kyoto, the ancient
capital of Japan. Suntanned, with shoulder-length hair, and casually
dressed in a turtleneck and black jacket, he slipped into the
Kyoto dialect as he laughed and joked during the conversation:
You describe the Legend of Zelda, which
follows the medieval adventures of a boy named Link, as a "foolishly
perfect" world.
What do you mean?
We all worked so hard to make the details
as thorough as possible. It would have taken a lifetime to complete
the product if we'd kept polishing the natural look of wind,
ripples on the water, dust and so forth. And in 10 years' time,
this will be old technology. But at this moment, what we've made
is very close to the real world. And it looks beautiful because
of the basic capabilities of Nintendo 64 and of our game designers.
What gave you the idea to make Super Mario
Brothers a game about a plumber who chases creatures around in
the sewage pipes of New York City?
I liked the idea of a game where creatures
would move from top to bottom onscreen and then back up again.
When I thought about what kind of creatures those should be,
turtles and crabs just seemed like a good fit. Since there are
lots of pipes underground, I decided to use those for the creatures
to move along. While I had never been to New York, I liked what
I had seen of the city in movies and imagined that it must have
a huge underground world that would be a perfect setting for
the game.
What about Donkey Kong?
I wanted to make it painstakingly difficult
to climb upward, so I chose the settings of a building under
construction and a ship's gangway where obstacles were constantly
falling down and getting in the way.
I like the image of a barrel rolling down a gangway -- it's fun
to look at, you know? As for the character, who finds a beautiful
lady while climbing, I got the idea from "King Kong"
and "Popeye." Like King Kong, Donkey Kong is a climbing
gorilla who finds a lady. But Donkey Kong is also silly, in the
same way that Bluto is silly as he tries to steal Olive Oyl from
Popeye.
What can children learn from your games?
First, I want to entertain them in a fresh,
surprising way. Second, I'd like to make something in which the
players develop their own ideas and vision. Rather than reward
them for a single, correct answer, our games encourage them to
think of alternatives that lead to different results. I want
players to become creative and actively involved. I'm grateful
that our games are selling well, considering that people often
seek more passive forms of entertainment.
Over the years, there's been endless criticism
that there's just too much violence in video games. What about
the games you make -- is the issue of violence something that
affects you?
Well, we're very considerate of the fact
that young kids play our games. And I try not to use violence
as an easy means of expression.
It's easier to make people cry than laugh. It's easier to use
violence than to describe particular emotions. And it's easier
to use blood than to express a certain kind of terror in other
ways. It's OK to use violence with quality and for a purpose,
but I want to avoid using violence as an easy means just to seek
stimulus. We don't have to use it if we have other creative means
of expression.
I know your next video game is a secret,
but can you tell me in general what you're thinking about?
I like to think beyond the realm of video
games to get new ideas. For example, I like how the game Pikachu
Genkidechu uses voice recognition to detect players' voices and
respond to what they say.
Another gamemaker, Konami, has developed a software program called
beatmania (Hiphopmania in the U.S.) that lets players create
music by pressing buttons on a keyboard or by scratching a turntable
shown onscreen.
What do you like best about making video
games? And what's most challenging?
The best part is that I can freely create
games I enjoy, almost like an artist. Designers of cars, on the
other hand, can't do that because the company may not want to
invest that much money in a new design or assembly plant. The
challenging part is figuring out how to create a game that people
will understand. Sometimes we don't realize how
difficult a certain part of the game is for general players,
while other times we make parts too easy. Things don't always
work out as I imagined.
What would you do if video games didn't
exist?
Well, I think that I'd develop educational
toys, like Rubik's Cubes, or create intelligent entertainment
products. You know, I joined Nintendo to make products that use
ideas and intelligence, and they just turned out to be video
games.
-- SACHIKO SAKA
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