Thursday’s biggest keynote speech at the Game Developer Conference 2007 was presented by
Shigeru Miyamoto, whom the conference event’s head Jamil Moledina called “the
Steven Spielberg of games.” After the crowd was shown what the designer’s Mii
looks like, Miyamoto finally took the stage to share his vision for games.
Rather than using PowerPoint to present his visual aids,
Miyamoto made use of the Wii and its Photo Channel. He started off with an
abridged history, starting with brief look-backs from Nintendo games like Donkey Kong, Super Mario World and Goldeneye to the non-Miyamoto approved Grand Theft Auto of 2004. It was this shift
in games from family-friendly to hardcore, mature themes that lead Nintendo to
look beyond the traditional gaming market.
Rather than following the same old, but true, gaming
conventions, Miyamoto started to think about games for the non-gamer—namely his
wife. On display was a measure of how appealing a game is to non-gamer, called
the “Wife-o-meter.” Nintendogs was
one such game.
Miyamoto, upon observing the interaction between dogs and
his wife, figured that a game about animal interaction could expand the gamer
base. “When I eventually showed [Nintendogs]
to my wife, she finally started to look at video games in a different way,” he
said.
Nintendogs moved
the Wife-o-meter up significantly, but it still wasn’t full. The next major
innovation for non-gamers was Brain Age,
the brain training game originally marketed to the older Japanese market as a
way to stave off senility. “And then came Brain
Age, this is the game that turned her into a true gamer,” Miyamoto relayed.
Eventually, Mrs. Miyamoto was acquainted with not only the
DS, but also the Wii. She would play Wii Sports and participate in the voting
channel on her own, which Miyamoto said surprised him to no end. “This is a big
event in my house, it would have been more expected for me to come home and
find Donkey Kong eating at our table,” he said.
Miyamoto points out that Nintendo, unlike its competitors,
is a company that is solely focused on the gaming experience and nothing
else. The Wii, a risky proposition, was the combined effort from the entire
company and Miyamoto is extremely proud of the freedom given to designers
thanks to the Wii Remote. For him, creative vision is paramount in creating a
fun experience for the player. Miyamoto also hopes for games to promote
communication. With Wii, people are playing together and exchanging ideas. In
fact, the interaction of different people’s Miis has inspired Miyamoto to
create a special “Mii Channel” where users can enter their avatars in
popularity contests.
Mario was the next topic, and the missing Super Mario 128 game that was supposed
to return the plump plumber back to form. Apparently, Miyamoto’s mind had many
ideas for the next Mario game, with many of those ideas already taken form in Pikmin, a quirky game on the GameCube.
Though Mario 128 is no longer in the
cards, everything looks good for Super
Mario Galaxy for Wii, which is promised for players this year. A video of Super Mario Galaxy was played, showing amazing
acrobatics and impressive graphical quality that we have yet to see from the Wii—this
is a game that all Nintendo fans will be excited about. See the video here.
Miyamoto knows that he has a unique vision in gaming, but he
says to other developers, “Your vision doesn't have to be my vision,” and
expresses much faith in the future of the games after seeing the success of Wii
and DS. Miyamoto encourages the industry to “always remember the human touch”
when designing games. “After all, if we can convert my wife, we can convert
anyone,” he concludes.
