Miyamoto: I was worried about US Wii launch

In an exclusive interview, Shigeru Miyamoto, director and general manager of Nintendo Entertainment Analysis and Design, shares his thoughts about the Wii generation so far.

How did you get your job at Nintendo?

Well, coming out of college, I was interested in Nintendo because I saw it as a company that made a lot of kind of weird and interesting things, primarily toys at the time. They weren't hiring, but it turned out that my father's friend was an acquaintance of Mr. Yamauchi [then president of Nintendo], so through him I managed to get an interview. I interviewed with the director of development and that is how I got started.

You've mentioned that in college you studied Industrial Design. Do you have advice for students at this time who are interested in becoming involved in games?

I prepared myself for the possibility that Wii might face an uphill battle in America, so to see that it has become this big of a hit is something t I wasn't particularly expecting." Shigeru Miyamoto of Nintendo

These days, students may compete with one another on tests and things to see who can get the better score, but you don't really have a lot of opportunity to create something in school, show it to other people; and then have those people criticize and evaluate your work. That's something that I think is very important to the game design process. You have to be willing to show a game that you've created to other people and then hear their criticisms. Sometimes that can cause a lot of frustration for you. But you have to be able to take that criticism, bring it back with you, and then reflect it in the next version of the game that you make or use it to improve a game you are currently developing. I think that is probably the most important experience that you can build to prepare for a job in video game development.

Do you recommend a certain field of study or area of focus for students?

While young people are still students, I think it is important for them to not just focus on something like programming or just focus on video games. Instead they should do things that you can only do while you are in college. Get out, meet people, and talk to people. At universities there are people working in a wide variety of fields and a wide variety of genres and I think the more that you can expose yourself to as many of those different genres and fields as possible the better that will end up being for you in the long run.

Are you happy with the success the Wii is enjoying right now?

Well, the Wii is selling very well here in America and it's maintaining some very strong momentum--that has me extremely happy! Personally, I prepared myself for the possible reality that the Wii might face an uphill battle in America, so to see that it has become this big of a hit here and that it's selling as well as it is in Japan is a huge relief. It's left me very excited and it's something that I wasn't particularly expecting.

What were some of your concerns going into the Wii launch?

One of my concerns was that people who were interested in cutting-edge video games wouldn't be that interested in Wii Sports. The fact that we bundled it together with the software wasn't simply us saying, "Let's put the game in there and make the people feel like they are getting something extra when they buy the system." The real idea was that this is a game that we absolutely want everyone to play, because it really shows you what the Wii can do. So this wasn't the idea of bundling something together to help sell the system. [Wii Sports] was designed to help promote the system.

So by having it with every system, then those people who are maybe more hardcore gamers - if they have it they put it in and they play it and then they start to realize how fun the game is, how fun the system is and they can also use it to promote it to other people. It is really great to see that Wii Sports as well is being enjoyed by the hardcore gamers.

Was there ever a thought that Wii Sports would be sold separately or was it always the idea that it would be bundled from the beginning?

There are other enhancements to the Wii interface and developments being planned that are going to really make games for hardcore players a lot more fun and interesting."

There were actually some people in our sales group who said that we couldn't bundle it, and that we really needed to sell Wii Sports as a separate product. So originally our intent was to develop it as a stand-alone piece of software.

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