In this interview, we’re going to talk about New Super Mario Bros. Wii, but rather than diving straight into a discussion of the new title, I'd like to begin by talking about Mario's roots. There will of course be a lot of readers who know all about this, but I think there are also people who are completely in the dark about how Mario began.

Yes, you’re right.

Shall we begin by talking about the period of Mario’s initial conception, when he was known as “Jumpman"?

Sure. Now, this is something I’ve been asked about in hundreds of interviews, so I’ll make it quick! (laughs) In the Pac-Man¹ era, there were a number of games that were really popular in the video game arcades. Nintendo had released titles such as Sheriff² but none of them quite achieved the level of popularity where you could call them hits.

1	Pac-Man was an arcade game released in 1980 by Namco (now Namco Bandai Games Inc.). A huge hit worldwide, it later appeared on the Nintendo Entertainment System.
2	Sheriff was a shooting game released in 1979 where the hero had to defeat 16 outlaws. It also appeared as a mini-game on WarioWare, Inc.: Minigame Mania for the Game Boy Advance.

That's right. So it was at this point that the President of Nintendo at the time, Yamauchi-san, told us: “Make games that sell more!”

"Make games that sell more!” That’s some task he set you! (laughs)

It was some task indeed! (laughs) So we decided to research what made hit titles so popular. Well, when I say "research", I just mean playing the games! (laughs)

Playing in the name of research! (laughs)

As you can imagine, I was a big fan of games. What’s more, while now there are lots of people at Nintendo who are highly-skilled video game players, at the time I was one of the best.

People would gather round to watch when you were playing in the arcade, wouldn't they?

Before I knew it, there'd be a crowd of people around me!

There was even a time when I had people gathered around me, you know!

At the time, dot-eating games³ predominated, Pac-Man being the most well-known…

3	Dot-eating games were games where the player attempted to avoid enemies in a maze while manoeuvring over dots in order to increase their score.

Yes, in arcades at the time you’d find a number of different types of games based around eating dots.

Right. At the same time, you were also seeing the emergence of side-scrolling games where your character would run along. As I was originally an industrial designer, I would analyse those games while I played them, trying to figure out what it was about the way the games were put together that made them enjoyable and made people want to play them again.

So you wanted to know what it was that made players insert another 100 yen coin once the game was over and have another go

Right. And basically, I concluded that this was born of the players being mad at themselves. So I would try to analyse how the game made players feel that way. It was when I was mulling over these issues that a more senior colleague, Gunpei Yokoi⁴, was good enough to explain a lot of things to me. I don’t want to get bogged down in too much detail about the intricacies of game design, so I'll skip over this. Anyway, up until that point, I had been working as a graphic and packaging designer for games developed by other people...

4	Gunpei Yokoi (1941-1997) worked at Nintendo, chiefly as a developer for products such as Game & Watch and the Game Boy handheld system, as well as the NES robot or Robotic Operating Buddy (R.O.B.) and Dr. Mario.

So you were drawing pixellated images and creating the pictures used on arcade machines…

I was involved in making games for arcades, but the kind of ideas I was suggesting weren't really getting picked up on... But then I was lucky enough to be entrusted with the entire development of a software title...

So that was the big turning point in your development as a game designer?

Right. And it was then that, having rigorously analysed what exactly made people want to play one more time, I sketched out ideas for five games. At this point, Nintendo was the licensee for Popeye⁵.

5	Popeye is a popular American cartoon character. Other memorable characters who appear alongside the hero include Olive Oyl and Bluto.

Yes, the company was releasing Popeye playing cards and Popeye Game & Watch titles.

That’s why at first I was asked if I could make a game using Popeye. The basic concept of Popeye is that there is the hero and his rival who he manages to turn the tables on with the aid of spinach.

When you put it like that, it’s the same as Pac-Man, isn't it? (laughs)

Yes, it’s identical to Pac-Man! (laughs) So I sketched out a few ideas for games using Popeye. At that point, Yokoi-san was good enough to bring these ideas to the President’s attention and in the end one of the ideas received official approval. Yokoi-san thought that designers would become necessary members of development teams in order to make games in the future. And that's how
Donkey Kong⁶ came about.

6	Donkey Kong was the debut release from game designer Shigeru Miyamoto. It appeared in arcades in 1981 and was released for the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1983.

But originally it was going to be a Popeye game.

That’s right. But while I can't recall exactly why it was, we were unable to use Popeye in that title. It really felt like the ladder had been pulled out from under us, so to speak.

So even though you were making a game about climbing ladders, you had the ladder pulled out from beneath you before you even got started! (laughs)

Great gag! You deserve a standing ovation for that one! (laughs) Anyway, at the time we were at a loss as to how to proceed. Then we thought: “Why not come up with our own original character?"

So basically Donkey Kong and Mario came about once the ladder had been pulled out from beneath you.

Exactly.

Miyamoto-san, you really do lead a charmed life!

It was a really lucky break! So next we began to flesh out the idea for a game based on the concept we had come up with. Now, a fun game should always be easy to understand - you should be able to take one look at it and know what you have to do straight away. It should be so well constructed that you can tell at a glance what your goal is and, even if you don’t succeed, you’ll blame yourself rather than the game. Moreover, the people standing around watching the game have also got to be able to enjoy it. These were the kind of issues I discussed with Yokoi-san.

So you were analysing what made games fun to play.

Yes, we were. Let's say, for example, that there's one action in the game that the player can perform easily. Then let's add another simple action. These actions may be simple in themselves, but when the player is required to do them both at the same time, it becomes a whole lot more tricky.

So while those two actions might be easy to pull off on their own, when you try to do them simultaneously, it gets more difficult. And it's precisely because you think it should be easy to do that you get mad at yourself when you don't quite manage it, right?

Precisely. So let’s say we make a number of uneven, overlapping slopes…

Where you have to climb ladders and jump and so on.

So you’re aiming to get safely to the goal using short cuts while constantly trying to predict the route that the barrels rolling towards you are going to take. It’s easy to climb higher and higher. It’s also easy to avoid the rolling barrels. But it’s when you try to do those two things at the same time that it becomes challenging. What's more, you're also thinking about how to take the shortest possible route, so it gets even more difficult. We thought that we could work with that concept. It was at that point when we tried to make the screen scroll and were told: “That board doesn’t scroll!” (laughs)

The "board" that you just mentioned is the circuit board inside the arcade game cabinet. At that time, there was a fair amount of individuality, shall we say, in each machine and, depending on the specific type of hardware, there were different limitations imposed. When you began work on Donkey Kong, the cabinet which you were supposed to use included a board which wouldn't allow games to scroll.

As we wanted the game to be played on at least four connected screens, we simply referred to that as “scrolling”. (laughs)

So the fact that Donkey Kong is played over four screens stems from your original desire to make it scroll?

Yes, that’s right. The technical supervisor at the time asked us what on earth we were thinking: "One screen is plenty for a regular game! But you're making four separate screens! You might as well ask us to make four different games!”

But you were dead set on doing it that way.

Yes, I was. I also recall that the cabinet we were making the game for had one joystick and one button, but initially I intended it to be controlled using only the joystick.

So what you’re saying is that if that cabinet hadn’t happened to have a button, Mario wouldn’t have jumped? You can’t imagine Mario now without thinking of him jumping! (laughs)

Well, that might have been the case. Originally it was a game where you had to escape from a maze. To have allowed players to jump and avoid dangers would have spoiled the strategic element of the game. But then we thought: “If you had a barrel rolling towards you, what would you do?”

Naturally, you’d jump over it! (laughs)

Of course you’d jump over it! (laughs) So we decided to use the button to allow players to jump and when we made a prototype to try it out, it worked really well. I think that if we hadn't allowed Mario to jump, it would have most likely proved to be a horrendously difficult game to play.

You’d have had to focus on avoiding the barrels while climbing up through the maze. That would have required a huge amount of grit and determination.

Also, if we’d made it so you’d been able to jump by pressing up on the joystick, the name “jump button” would never have come about! On the 2^nd stage, we had vertical lifts and we were concerned as to how the player would be able to get on them. But if Mario jumped...

Then getting on and off them would be a breeze! (laughs)

It was then that we decided to go with jumping, which worked out for the best.

By allowing Mario to jump, you were able to solve multiple issues at the same time*.

We were also able to make use of that spare button! (laughs) So that’s the story of how Mario became able to jump.

Mario’s trademarks are his moustache, his hat and his overalls. Why did you decide to give him this look? I have no doubt you’ve spoken about this many times before, but I’d like to take this opportunity to ask you to tell us about it one more time.

Certainly. The original Mario was a 16 X 16 pixellated image. At that time, when games made overseas used human characters, they were always rendered with life-like proportions.

It felt as if the developers weren’t happy unless they’d drawn a figure that was eight-heads tall.

Or sometimes it would be six-heads tall. But actually, the number of pixels we were able to use was so limited that, if we did that, we’d only have had a couple of pixels for the face.

With two pixels, you wouldn't even have been able to draw eyes. You'd basically have ended up with a matchstick figure. In early video games from overseas, that kind of figure often featured.

And as they just didn’t resemble human figures, I was absolutely convinced that they’d been designed by people who couldn’t draw!

(laughs)

I thought it was most likely that it was the programmer who was drawing these figures. But I thought: “I know how to draw!" I mean, I'm not saying I can draw as well as an artist, but I was confident that I was better at drawing than a programmer. That’s why I started by saying: "Right, let's draw something that actually looks like a person's face!" So I drew the eyes, the nose, the mouth and...

There’s absolutely no way that you would have had enough pixels, right?

Right, there weren’t enough. Before you know it, you’ve used up 8 X 8 pixels. But if you draw a nose then a moustache, you don't really know if it's a mouth or a moustache, and it saves pixels.

So if you draw a moustache, you don’t have to draw a mouth.

You don’t have to draw a mouth, which makes a big difference. You only need one pixel for the chin and if you draw two vertical pixels, you've got eyes that hopefully look quite cute. (laughs) Also, because you can’t fully draw hair, by making him wear a hat, you can reduce the hair to only a couple of pixels.

So you made Mario wear a hat in order to keep the number of pixels you were using down?

Well, if you have hair, it also presents problems to animate it. And if you draw a hat, you can have the eyes directly beneath it.

And with that the face is complete.

But when you come to draw the body using the remaining pixels, there's a limit to what you can do. Furthermore, because we wanted him to run properly, we needed to animate him and we were only able to use three different frames for this. When Mario is running he moves his arms, but in order to make that movement easier to see, I thought it would be best to make his arms and his body different colours. So I wondered whether there was a type of outfit which was like that…

And that’s how you came up with overalls! (laughs)

Right! Overalls were the only option! So that’s how we ended up giving Mario overalls. Fortunately, the game was set on a construction site so we thought we had no other option but to make him a carpenter! (laughs)

There’s a sense of inevitability about all of this! (laughs)

Then we gave Mario a pair of white gloves, in order to make his movements easier to spot when he jumped.

So the entire design was a case of form being dictated by function. You can really see that your specialist field, industrial design, is evident in the final result. Then, because he jumped up and down, he became known as “Jumpman”, right?

Well, I called him “Mr. Video”. My plan was to use the same character in every video game I made.

So you had that plan right from the start? Why did you intend to use him in every video game you made?

Well, I thought the way Hitchcock⁷ cropped up in all the films he directed was really cool! (laughs)

So in a perfect example of function dictating form, you came up with the turtle - and the Koopa Troopa was born! But how did things develop from there?

Well, first we had to draw the turtle. At that time, I took it easy and asked the designer who was assisting me to work on it. And what he came up with was an incredibly realistic turtle! (laughs)

That doesn’t really fit with Mario’s world, does it? (laughs)

So then I drew one myself, all the while saying things like: “I don’t suppose there’s any turtle with a face this big…” Thinking about it afterwards, it did somewhat resemble a tortoise. Anyway, Hiroka-chan who was doing the sound for the game, and who is now the President of Creatures Inc., ...

You’re talking about Hirokazu Tanaka¹²...

12	Hirokazu Tanaka worked at Nintendo as a composer and was responsible for the music for many titles including Balloon Fight, Dr. Mario and Mother. He is currently the President of Creatures Inc.

Yes. So while I was speaking to Tanaka-san, we got onto the subject of what the insides of a turtle were like.

The insides of a turtle? (laughs)

Originally, I wanted to make it easy to see when the turtle was about to get up again. Even if you make the flipped-over turtle shell begin to twitch before it recovers, the player is going to be unsure at which twitch it will turn itself over. We’d get really excited discussing ideas like: “What if when you struck it from below, the turtle flew out of his shell and trotted around for a while before coming back to its shell? Then when it gets back into its shell, it's back on its feet!”

Well, Tanaka-san is a really fun guy, after all!

We decided that was a great idea and went ahead with the turtles coming right out of their shells.

But turtles aren’t just borrowing their shells like hermit crabs, you know! (laughs)

That’s just ridiculous! (laughs) No, turtles’ spines develop to become shells, so of course real turtles aren’t actually able to fly out of their shells. But in the end, while I knew that I was lying to children, I decided: “Look, this way it’s easy to understand so we’re going to make a creature like this!"

So while it looks like a turtle, it’s actually not a turtle at all.

It’s not a turtle! It’s a Koopa Troopa!

(laughs)

So in that way, we tended to look at the functionality and design the game with that in mind.

The story of how the turtle came about is one very particular example, but Mario Bros. is full of elements which connect it to the New Super Mario Bros. Wii title we will discuss today, with the pipes, the coins to collect and the fact that it had a multiplayer mode.

That’s right. I think we were able to link its sequels to it very successfully.

How did you come up with the idea of having pipes in the first place?

It comes from manga.

Manga?

If you read old comic books, there will always be waste ground with pipes lying around.

You’re right! (laughs)

So the idea that you could get inside pipes when you see them was one that seemed very natural to me. Then when I was making Mario Bros., I realised that if all the turtles that emerged were to fall down to the bottom of the screen, they’d end up piled up there, which would be no good.

The bottom of the screen would become turtle-ridden! (laughs)

That’s why I thought that in a closed-off space, we needed the same turtles to come and go. As the left and right of the screen were connected…

If Mario went off the right of the screen, he would appear again from the left, wouldn't he?

Right. But even with that in mind, having the top and bottom of the screen connected in the same way would have been somewhat odd. Then, on the way home from the office, I spied a concrete wall in a residential area which had a number of drainage pipes coming out of it. I thought: "I can use those!" (laughs) It’s well-established that something will emerge from a pipe and then go back into it.

So that’s how you made it so the Koopa Troopas that come out of the pipe at the top will go back into the pipe at the bottom. Just out of interest, why did you decide to make the pipes green?

What’s that?

Well, pipes would normally be grey. I don't believe you'll often find green pipes.

Well, that’s the first time I’ve been asked that one! (laughs) I don’t really remember the reason why we made them green, but there weren’t that many colours you could use in video games back then.

Yes, it was very limited at that time.

Of those colours, blue was very bright and beautiful. Green was also very nice when you used two different tones. Those were the things we considered when designing the look of the game.

I see.

So if we were using two tones together, green was the best colour to have. We didn't make the pipes green because they had to be the same colour as the turtles' shells or anything like that.

It just ended up being a good match with the colour of the turtles.

Green was just a colour that worked well when combining two shades.

Right.

That was a bit of a designer's response, wasn't it?

(laughs)

During the period that I was working on Donkey Kong, I would often go on ski trips in the winter. I would stare intently out of the coach window at the lights of the other buses and cars and wonder to myself things like: “Which colours are the most beautiful?” So while I was surveying things in that way…

Surveying?

Well, there was a time when I aspired to be a designer!

(laughs) Well, video game development at that time was essentially a matter of working out how things could be achieved within the limitations imposed by the hardware.

Yes, that’s right. It was while coming up with graphics which fit nicely with the technology that I began to think: “You know what? This is a pretty fun job!”

I think that because of the nature of the time, one was led to all kinds of weird and wonderful world views by all manner of strange routes. Now, I think that we should turn to Super Mario Bros.¹³ which will link in with today’s discussion of New Super Mario Bros. Wii.

13	Super Mario Bros. was a platform game on the Nintendo Entertainment System released in Japan in September 1985 and in Europe in May 1987.

It was from that time that I worked on the games together with Takashi Tezuka-san¹⁴. I recall there was one time when we wanted a character that would fly up and down but we didn't have enough free space to make a new character.

14	Takashi Tezuka has been involved in the development of the Super Mario Series, the Yoshi Series, the Animal Crossing Series and many other games. He is the General Manager of the Entertainment Analysis and Development Division at Nintendo Co., Ltd.

Sure enough, if you added up all the programming and graphical data for Super Mario Bros., you only had 40 kilobytes to work with.

So we were asking ourselves what we could do when we thought: "Why not try giving the turtles wings!" (laughs)

So the Koopa Troopas sprouted wings! (laughs)

I thought that there's no chance this will work, but when we actually attached the wings, it looked pretty cute! (laughs) This became the Koopa Paratroopa.

Was it Tezuka-san who suggested putting wings on the turtles?

I believe so. On Mario 3¹⁵, we also put wings on the Goomba and called it the
Paragoomba. In those days, we were really able to do whatever we pleased.

15	Super Mario Bros. 3 was a platform game released for the Nintendo Entertainment System in October 1988 in Japan and in August 1991 in Europe.

What were your initial considerations when you began working on Super Mario Bros. for the Famicom?

After Mario Bros., there were a fair few jumping-style games released by various companies and I felt that this kind of jumping game had been our idea.

Donkey Kong involved jumping, as did Mario Bros., so you felt that Nintendo were the real originators of this kind of game.

I did. I went as far as thinking that jumping is an original idea and that it should be patented! Anyway, I thought: “Right, I’m not going to let those other games top us!” (laughs) We had done tests where a large character jumped around with the blue sky in the background…

Video games at that time usually had a black background.

Video game designers back then wanted to keep that black background as it was less tiring for the players’ eyes to see. But I felt like the time had come when people were tiring of that and I thought it might be good to have a primary colour background that varies. So we utilised the technical capabilities of the Famicom to the full and decided to make Super Mario Bros. based on the concept of having a large character who would negotiate land, sea and air.

The game takes place on land, sea and air, with underground sections as well. Had you decided right from the start that it should be a large character that negotiated this terrain?

We had broadly decided on this approach. A large character that would run around on the ground...

…And swim in the sea.

In terms of the game’s structure, the swimming part is Balloon Fight¹⁶.

16	The arcade version of the action game Balloon Fight was released in 1984 with a version released for the Famicom in Japan the following year.

You’re right. That’s exactly what it is.

With Balloon Fight previously launched, that system of controls had been tried and tested. For the sky, we had the image of Sun Wukong from Monkey jumping between clouds.

And what was behind the idea of having a large character?

We started off by doing tests to see how it would feel for the player to control a large character, double the size of Mario. As it felt really good, we continued to develop the idea. But then we discovered that it was more satisfying if Mario only increased in size part-way through the game, so we decided to make a small Mario as well.

By collecting a mushroom, Mario increases in size to become Super Mario. But why a mushroom?

Well, the mushroom… When you think about Wonderland, you think about mushrooms, right? (laughs)

(laughs)

Some time ago I was being interviewed and I spoke about Alice in Wonderland. But it seems there was some misunderstanding and it’s since been stated that I was influenced by Alice in Wonderland. That isn’t the case. It’s just that there has always somehow been a relationship between mushrooms and magical realms. That’s why I decided that Mario would need a mushroom to become Super Mario.

The mushrooms don’t just sit there, but actually move. What gave you that idea?

Well, in games you can either have objects following you that move at the same speed as you, objects that follow you but are a little slower than you, or objects following you that are a little faster than you. That speed makes all the difference in terms of how fun it is. We repeatedly did trials and saw the results, and I was adamant that something that you really want which is escaping you at a bit slower speed than you would be really fun.

You can experience the enjoyment of chasing something.

Right. There was one problem, however. When you play, you encounter a Goomba right at the start and it’s shaped like a mushroom.

It does look very similar.

So when you hit a box and something that looks like a Goomba pops out…

You run away.

Right, you run away. This gave us a real headache. We needed somehow to make sure the player understood that this was something really good. That’s why we made the mushroom approach you.

Yes, that’s right. If you play the game for the first time with no prior knowledge, you're going to run into the first Goomba and lose a turn.

Right, which is why you have to teach the player in a natural way that they need to avoid them by jumping over them.

Then when the player tries to jump and avoid them, there are going to be times when they get it wrong and end up stamping on the Goomba. By doing that, they learn in a natural way that by stamping on them, you can defeat them.

As long as you stamp on them, you have nothing to fear from Goombas.

But if you avoid the first Goomba and then jump and hit a block above you, a mushroom will spring out and you’ll get a shock. But then you’ll see that it’s going to the right so you’ll think: “I’m safe! Something strange appeared but I’m okay!” But of course when it goes against a pipe up ahead, the mushroom will come back! (laughs)

Right! (laughs)

At that point, even if you panic and try to jump out of the way, you’ll hit the block above you. Then just at the instant where you accept that you’re done for, Mario will suddenly shake and grow bigger! You might not really know what’s just happened, but at the very least, you’ll realise that you haven’t lost the turn.

But you’ll wonder why Mario suddenly got larger.

You’ll try jumping and see that you can jump to higher places and smash through the ceiling, so it'll be clear that you’ve become more powerful.

It’s at that moment that you first realise that the mushroom is a good item.

That’s the reason why it’s designed so that whatever you do, you’ll get the mushroom.

Of course it's because we wanted the player to realise that this item was different from a Goomba.

When I first realised that this had all been designed with that purpose in mind, I was really taken aback. When you tell people who weren’t aware of it that the start of Super Mario Bros. was designed with this intention, it’s rare that they won’t be impressed.

Is that right?

It’s not as if it was me who came up with it, but I've gone around bragging about it to plenty of people! (laughs)

(laughs) It wasn’t an idea that was in the original design plan for the game. It’s something we thought about as we were making the game. But happily, it turned out for the best…

So it’s not the case that you can foresee everything before you start. Rather, as you develop the game, you gradually work on things by saying: "Perhaps it would be better like that… Maybe it would work better like this…”

I always endeavour to develop games through a process of trial and error, sometimes taking an objective point of view and sometimes looking at things from the player's perspective.

Up until now, we’ve spoken about Donkey Kong right through to Super Mario Bros., but if we were to keep going through the history of Super Mario Bros, I don't think we'd ever have enough time to finish the interview! (laughs)

Yes, you’re right! (laughs)

So let’s jump forward in time now to the twentieth anniversary of the release of the Famicom¹⁷. In 2004, Nintendo put out the NES Classics series¹⁸, including
a return for Super Mario Bros. What impression did you have of this?

17	This campaign was held in 2003 to mark twenty years since the release of the Famicom in Japan. One feature of the campaign was a special twentieth anniversary edition of the Game Boy Advance SP.
18	NES Classics were a series of Famicom games re-released for the Game Boy Advance in 2004.

At the time, I had a sense that the number of people who had played games once but who didn’t any longer was steadily growing. But while I understood this in principle, the reality of the situation hadn’t fully struck me. But saying that, of course I’m a gamer and I’m surrounded by people who like games. So then when I heard people talking about this issue at the time the NES Classics series was released, it was really brought home to me: "Ah... So there are this many people out there who remember Mario but who have forgotten all about games!"

That’s why it meant a lot for us personally to have been involved in the twentieth anniversary of the Famicom followed by the twentieth anniversary of Super Mario¹⁹.

19	To mark the twentieth anniversary of the original release of Super Mario Bros., a campaign was held in 2005. In addition to Super Mario Bros. being re-released as part of the NES Classics series, on 13th September, the date of the original release, the Game Boy Micro was released in Japan.

Yes, I believe that it did. But no matter how far people may drift away from games, their memories of playing Mario are still with them… At that time, Mario had advanced to 3D and we would discuss the fact that there were now two different strands to the Mario series: there was the Mario that had developed in step with consoles as they had become more advanced, and there was also the basic Mario that anyone could play. When I talked about this with Tezuka-san, he said: “Right, if we make another one, it should be a side-scrolling Mario.”

And that became New Super Mario Bros. for DS²⁰.

20	New Super Mario Bros. was released for Nintendo DS in June 2006 in Europe.

Right. But as you’d expect, looking at it from the perspective of those who were in step with technological developments, one could ask: ”Why are you making a 2D side-scrolling game now?” And then the counter-argument would be: “We can use 3D polygon graphics, but by making a side-scrolling game, won’t we be appealing to a larger number of people?” So we decided to make a Mario that made a fresh start by returning to its core principles. That's why we put "New" in the title.

What were you most conscious of when you were working on New Super Mario Bros. for DS?

As it was a Mario game based on its original principles, of course you had to find the goal if you went to the right. It also couldn’t be over-long, and you had to get the clear sense that you were becoming more skilled if you played it repeatedly.

So “experience points” would build up in your fingers.

Yes, experience would build up. But to release a game for new hardware with only those elements would have been too understated. That's why we decided to put very flashy elements in the game.

Are you referring to the giant Mario?

That’s right. If you include that enormous Mario, the rest of the game can be as old-fashioned as you like.

After actually making the game, do you have any regrets or feelings that you wish you’d done things differently?

If I had to point out one aspect, I’d say that the difficulty level was a little…

While you succeeded in coming up with a Mario title that anyone could play, for those players who were seeking a bit more of a challenge, it may have been a touch too easy.

As you can imagine, no matter how hard you try, it just isn’t possible to settle on a difficulty level that will satisfy everyone ranging from people who haven’t played a game in years right through to players who know all the Mario games inside out. You have to focus it on either one or the other.

I like to describe the series of action games that you and your team come up with, most famously Mario, as being "sports tournament games”. What I mean is, by pushing yourself harder and harder, you make progress, and then just when you have the goal in sight, you slip up. Then a voice seems to come from above that tells you: "Right! Give it another try!” Then you try again, and fail yet again. But by doing that, and failing again and again, you will steadily build up experience and as a result, when you do succeed, the feeling of satisfaction is incredible. That’s why I think they’re reminiscent of a sports tournament.

That’s why we even discussed releasing an enhanced version of New Super Mario Bros., for those people who wanted to play a Mario which demanded more skills. With the Wii version of New Super Mario Bros. this time round, its biggest single defining feature lies there. We didn't just want first-time players to enjoy it; we wanted to make a new Mario game that players looking for a stiffer challenge would be able to relish.

How did you try to resolve the difficult issue of making a game that was able to please both camps?

Firstly, if you play Mario and just can’t manage to finish a level, you feel like crying, don’t you?

Absolutely! You feel like crying! (laughs)

There’s always a basic reason why you can’t clear a level: either it’s because the game is really difficult, or it’s because you don’t understand the game properly. For instance, even though you could use a lift and bounce easily to the next stage, you go out of your way to choose a tricky route and that means no matter how many times you try it, you fail.

So you’ve ramped up the difficulty level yourself by not choosing the correct route.

Yes, that's right. It’s at times like that when watching a skilled player will make you realise: “So that’s what you have to do!” Then you can do it correctly yourself. I thought it would be great if you were able to do that in your own home, which is why we devised the Super Guide.

Could you explain what the Super Guide is?

To help you progress through the level, Luigi shows you the correct path.

So it’s not Mario, it’s Luigi. But there are going to be those people who even when they watch the Super Guide will feel like crying, thinking: "But I can't do that!"

That’s why the Super Guide won’t only show you the correct strategy, it will also allow you to provisionally clear the course. It will present you with the option to skip that course and move on to the next one.

So in other words, by using the Super Guide, you could get right through to the end.

Well, since you’ve purchased it, it’s surely better to be able to see the ending.

But isn’t there a risk that by allowing that, the essence of playing an action game will somehow be lost? I said it a little earlier, but it’s precisely by pushing yourself a little harder, and by failing again and again, that the feeling of achievement you get when you succeed grows.

We’ve included a number of elements in the game with that in mind. Now, I’m sure you’ve had times when there’s been one particular place on a level that you just can’t get past, no matter how hard you try.

Those are the places that will really have you on the verge of tears!

There are times when even if you watch the Super Guide and understand how you should do it, you still can’t manage it yourself. At times like that, you can use the Super Guide to get past the tough part then play yourself.

So part-way through the Super Guide, you can take over just like that?

Once it’s gone past the tricky part, you can press the Pause Button and change the player back to yourself. The player will be Luigi, but his jumping ability²¹ is the same as Mario’s.

21	In Super Mario Bros. 2, released for the Famicom Disk System in June 1986 in Japan, Luigi could jump higher than Mario. In New Super Mario Bros. Wii, his jumping ability is the same as Mario’s.

Novices will be happy about this feature.

But while it was my idea to include this feature, as a gamer, I would feel intensely irritated if you were asked, “Do you want to see the Super Guide?,” right from the start of the game.

You wouldn’t be able to allow that? (laughs)

There’s no way I could ever allow that!

You think “Am I going to view the Super Guide without even playing the game once!?” (laughs)

Exactly! (laughs)

At first, we had the option to view the Super Guide on the first menu screen. But as I couldn’t bring myself to allow that, we considered a number of solutions and eventually came up with the idea that after losing three turns, a hint block would appear. If you hit that, then the option to view the Super Guide would be displayed.

You made it so that players can view the Super Guide after giving it three tries but not being successful.

I played that version myself, but that still made me upset!

(laughs)

I thought: "Are you making fun of me!?" (laughs) When we had the hint block appearing from the beginning I just felt like: "I don’t need this!"

If it appears right from the start, you feel: "This has got nothing to do with me!"

Right. But if you lose the turn three times and it appears…

Then you feel really annoyed?

(violently) …”Leave me alone!”

(laughs) It’s fine if it appears when you’re on the verge of tears, but if it pops up when you’re still brimming with determination to do it, then you feel: "I can do this! I’m going to clear this! What’s this thing doing popping up?"

Right!

So in the end, getting that timing right is extremely important - how many times should the player be allowed to slip up before the hint block appears?

That caused us a lot of headaches. Should it be five times, or would it be better if it was ten times? I thought that ten times would probably be best, but there were people who thought somewhere in between would be better and they suggested: "How about making it eight times?"

So that’s just about in the middle.

You start the game with five turns. But you’ll pick up a number of 1-Ups once you make a little progress. So we thought that if the player attempts to clear a level over a couple of sessions but can’t manage it, surely it’s okay to let them move on to the next level. That’s why we decided that after losing eight turns, the hint block should appear. But here’s the funny thing – when it appears after you slip up eight times, I think: "But I didn’t want it to pop up at all!"

You have your pride as a gamer, after all! (laughs)

I can’t forgive myself! (laughs) That’s why I’ll try my best to complete the level in seven attempts or less.

It’s funny that even though you were the one who added the Super Guide feature, you’re dead set on not letting it pop up! (laughs)

That’s why I wanted something to appear for players who didn’t allow the hint block to pop up.

Something for players who’ve done really well?

Right. For those players, there are medals awarded for not bringing up a hint block which are displayed on the title screen.

I see.

With that feature, it now means that if you bring up a hint block even once, you’ll want to wipe all your save data and start again from scratch.

So basically, if you slip up eight times, you start again from zero! (laughs)

Right. You go back to an earlier save game and try again! (laughs) A lot of the staff do that, and it’s actually an exciting way to play. If you’ve been coasting on autopilot up until then, this will make you refocus and give it your all.

So you’re playing hardball every time! (laughs)

You’re playing hardball. That’s something that we wouldn’t have come up with if we hadn’t thought of the Super Guide…

What kind of feedback did you get from the hardcore gamers at Mario Club²² ?

22	Mario Club Co., Ltd. is responsible for the debugging and test play of Nintendo software during its development.

They are all extremely skilled gamers so they are never going to actually need the Super Guide. On occasion, someone would say that a certain level was difficult and you’d check their data and see that they’d only slipped up three times.

So if they fail three times, it’s a difficult one! (laughs)

There are a lot of hardened gamers at Mario Club who are aiming for a perfect performance and this time round you can actually view a Super Skills display from some of these hardest-of-the-hardcore gamers.

Tell us more about this Super Skills display.

Well, this is Mario, so naturally there are three Star Coins to be found on each level. Needless to say, if you use the Super Guide, it won’t collect them for you or show you how to collect them. That’s why you need to get them through your own efforts.

So simply by playing using the walkthrough, there are aspects of the game you definitely can’t complete. At the same time, really good players will be able to prove that they stand out from the crowd.

By collecting Star Coins relying on their own abilities, skilled players will be able to watch a Hint Movie made up entirely of displays of Super Skills.

So there’s an example video with the very best play by the hardcore gamers at Mario Club and this will serve to enable skilled players to become even better.

That’s the idea. What’s more, if you collect all of the Star Coins and fulfil other conditions, you’ll be able to play new levels in the ninth world.

If the levels are for someone to have gone that far, the ninth world must be tough.

It’s not that these levels are all really difficult. We’ve got a mix of fairly unique levels as well as difficult ones.

Am I right in thinking there are fairly unforgiving levels?

Right, they’re unforgiving! (laughs) We’ve constructed the game so that not only Mario novices, but also skilled players, can really get the most out of it. I think that even playing alone, you can thoroughly enjoy the game. But this time round we’ve also got multiplayer action, which means that every time you play, you’ll get the sense that you’re playing on a new level.

Out of interest, did you intend to include multiplayer modes in the game from the beginning?

Yes, I did.

Ever since Mario Bros., you’ve had your heart set on making a multiplayer Mario game. You’ve tried each time, but it’s never quite come together… Even with Mario 64²³, it started with Mario and Luigi running around together, didn’t it?

23	Super Mario 64 was the first 3D Mario platform game. It was released in Japan along with the Nintendo 64 console in June 1996 and in Europe in March 1997.

That’s right. The screen was split and they went into the castle separately. When they meet in the corridor, I was incredibly happy! (laughs) Then there was also the mode where the camera is fixed and we see Mario running away, steadily getting smaller and smaller.

Yes, that’s right.

That was a remnant of an experiment we did where Mario and Luigi would run away from each other but you could still see them both. But we were unable to pull it off…

The idea of having multiplayer mode in Mario is one you’ve worked on for many years. How were you finally able to realise it this time round?

We owe it all to Wii’s processing power. The CPU is much faster than anything we’ve worked with before, its graphical capabilities are advanced and it has a large amount of memory.

So your longstanding dream has finally been realised on Wii.

Yes, it has.

Even if you have a multiplayer mode that lets four people play, there are those players who won’t like it as they don’t want to hold the other players back.

Those are the times when they should get inside a bubble. When you lose a turn in multiplayer mode, you’ll be returned to the level inside a bubble. If you’re then at a tricky bit and, for example, your grandmother says “There’s no way I can do this!” then all she has to do is press the A Button and she’ll be inside a bubble.

That way, you can get the skilled players to escort you right through to the end.

That’s right. Once you’re inside a bubble and floating, you can get carried along without even having to touch the Wii Remote. This means that even people who have never played a Mario game up until now will be able to talk about the final level. They can say things like: "That final boss's third attack was pretty nasty!" (laughs)

(laughs) It feels good to have skilled players and those who are not so skilled all joining in together.

Yes, it’s a good feeling. It helps everyone to bond. Playing a multiplayer game in that kind of congenial atmosphere can be very pleasant, but at the same time, a four-player Coin Battle can get pretty heated.

What precisely is a Coin Battle?

When it’s only skilled players going head to head, it basically turns into an all-out battle to wipe out the other players.

Well, there are times when nothing beats an all-out battle! (laughs)

It was when I came back from E3²⁴ in 2009 that I made the Coin Battle. I thought that an all-out battle should have rules...

24	The Electronic Entertainment Expo 2009 was held in Los Angeles. In addition to New Super Mario Bros. Wii, other new titles including The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks were playable, and many new titles such as Super Mario Galaxy 2 were announced.

What kind of rules do you mean?

For each course, victory should be decided by the number of coins that you’ve collected. With multiplayer modes, I’d say it’s more common than not to have everyone enjoying themselves without things really getting serious…

So it's a bit like: "Well done everybody for trying so hard!”

Right, that’s what it’s like! (laughs) But with the Coin Battle, the competition is more in earnest, with one person being clearly able to say: "I'm number one!"

Somehow when you play those games against close friends, you can get really worked up, can’t you?

You can. The player who collects the most coins wins, so you can basically go about it any way you see fit.

So you focus on grabbing as many coins as you can, then if the other players look like they’re about to get some, you do your best to obstruct them.

And even if you play that way, you won’t know the number of coins you’ve each collected until the end. So you might think you’ve really done well this time, but when the final results are announced, everyone will be on tenterhooks.

Do you know, I think I can imagine the rowdy atmosphere in the development room when everyone was playing that! (laughs)

Right. In the Coin Battle arena, there’s also a section which is a parody of the Mario of old, so everyone also got really excited when they played there.

But even allowing for that kind of excitement, I take it that development didn’t go completely without a hitch.

You’re right. This time round there were several directors on the project and inevitably they weren’t all on the same wavelength in terms of their level of understanding of the concept of Mario. That made it necessary for me to go right into the development area and say: “Look, this is how things work in Mario games!” Of course when I say that, it’s not objective—it’s my own take on things. (laughs)

Right.

This time round, there were a lot of discussions about judging what was “natural” and “unnatural”, from the perspectives of myself and the rest of the team. For instance, if you shoot a fireball underwater, it's going to travel in a straight line, isn’t it?

That's right.

That’s one of the rules that were established in the Famicom era. At that time, the underwater and overground sections were separate levels. But this time, there are levels where overground and underwater sections come together in a set. So if a fireball is travelling through the air then continues to travel in the same way through water, it looks somewhat “unnatural”. You wonder: "What precisely is that fire made from?"

(laughs)

It would be fine if fire that was released underwater continued to fly through the air in the same way. But when fire that’s been flying through the air enters the water, it would be “natural” to see it sizzling and giving off foam, wouldn't it?

It would.

And if that's not possible then we should make it so that you can't use fire in that area. But looking back over previous titles in the series, the people who made those games believed in the way things worked and didn't question whether or not it was "unnatural". They just thought that doing it that way made it easier to play. From my perspective, when I went to the development area, it really played on my mind that you could still see the consequences of all the lies I had told in the past all over the place.

So it’s only now that you’ve become aware of the lies that you told in the past! (laughs)

That’s why I would have to explain things by saying: “Actually, that was a lie!"

“There were good reasons why I made it that way at the time...” (laughs)

For instance, sometimes there’ll be a single block floating in mid-air, right? When I first made that, I thought it was totally outrageous.

Even though it was you who was making it! (laughs)

Even when I was working on Donkey Kong, I'd design things properly. I’d make sure that if there was a floor here, then there’d be a pillar somewhere to support it. But when it came to Super Mario Bros., we’d have a single block floating in mid-air: “Just what is this supposed to be hanging from?"

(laughs)

That's why when discussion started about making it into a movie²⁵, I got really nervous. I thought: "How are they going to film blocks suspended in mid-air?" When we made the game, it would start off with a large number of blocks and Mario would go along smashing those until there was just a single block floating there. We decided that ending up with just one block floating there didn't seem to feel unnatural, and we made the game with that in mind.

25	Super Mario Bros., a Hollywood adaptation of the video game, was released in 1993. The part of Mario was played by Bob Hoskins.

But why doesn’t it fall? (laughs)

Well, it’s actually connected round the back... (laughs)

(laughs)

In the new title, Penguin Mario throws ice balls which you can use to freeze enemies into blocks of ice underwater. Now these blocks of ice remain fixed in the same position in the water, which I couldn’t help finding strange.

It’s “unnatural”, isn’t it? (laughs)

Well, when you freeze something underwater, you'd expect ice to float. Then someone would say: "Isn't it strange that the enemies frozen in mid-air don't drop?" So we made it so that frozen enemies hang in the air before dropping. But then you might think that if you shoot a fireball at them, they should melt. So basically the discussion keeps developing like that, and if we took account of every possible angle, it would end up being a fantastically complicated game. What’s called for is judgement of how far we need to go so it feels natural and has rules that are easy to grasp. Now, if I don't do that...

…Then no one else is going to be able to decide! (laughs)

Nothing will get decided! Even the directors are all secretly thinking: “Go ahead and make the decision yourself!” (laughs)

(laughs)

That’s why, even though I was supposed to have been the producer, I ended up acting like a director for that period, writing the specification documents. (laughs) Do you remember when I told you that? “I’ve been writing specification documents recently. I’m getting pretty important, aren’t I?”

I remember you saying that! (laughs)

To write those, you need the person who first told the lie…

You have to take responsibility for your lies.

So I set things straight so we can make everything “natural”.

So this is the specification document for what's natural in the world of Mario.

I thought that unless I'm involved in every game in the series in the future, I’m not going to be able to tell everybody all of this. But I suppose I’m happy to be able to continue this…

We’re counting on you! (laughs)

How would you describe New Super Mario Bros. Wii to the people reading this interview?

I'd say that we’ve come up with a title that everyone, from those who are not all that skilled, right through to those who are highly-skilled, can all enjoy the fundamentals of Mario games. I think it boils down to that.

You just said that in quite an off-hand, casual way but achieving that must have been an incredibly difficult task.

My aim was that the Wii version of New Super Mario Bros. should still be selling copies a year after its release, just like the DS version did. I wanted it to become a staple for Wii owners. I put an enormous amount of energy into achieving this.

What do you think the difference is between titles that continue to sell even a year after their release and titles that don’t?

I think a game has to become just like a trusty tool that people get used to using and always have to hand. Also, it needs to have those elements that people can discover every time and want to tell other people about...

It needs to be full of things to discuss.

Right. It's important that the other person knows what you're talking about, and that you're discovering new things. That way, even if you play for a while and then put the game away, when a friend comes round, you'll want to dig it out again and play it again. I also think it's incredibly important that the sensation of playing the game is one you can't forget and that it gives you something that you can't get from other games. I suppose you'd call that the atmosphere of the game, or the "smell"... I think "smell" is getting close to it.

"Smell"...?

Well, great movies have their own distinctive "smell", don't you think? And I'm not talking about the smell of the cinema either! (laughs) There'll be a particular "smell" that you get from certain images.

You're talking about some kind of unique, distinctive feel...

I think that when something summons forth a lot of emotions, what you feel is perhaps something like a "smell". I wanted to make Mario so that it had its own distinctive "smell" - a Mario-esque "smell". I wanted to create something that stimulated as many of the five senses as it could. If you can do that, then when you get the game out to play from time to time, it really makes you happy. There are those games that you might just give one quick go but don't tend to really stay with you, no matter how exciting they may be.

Today you've used the expression "smell". But you often also talk about the particular "feel" of a game.

I do.

Where do you think the particular feel of a game comes from? What would you say gives a game that Mario-esque feel?

Well, depending on the game, you might use a joystick or the +Control Pad. In any case, the hardware functionality is identical. However, depending on the game, the actual feel when you press a button differs. That's the important part. It wouldn't be true to say that the controls for Mario have been handed down from generation to generation at the company. In actual fact, we have to redo it for each and every game.

But in the end, your own personal sensibilities will be the decisive factor, won't they, Miyamoto-san?

But that isn't something that's entirely reliable or accurate either. With this latest title, I would say things like: "It wasn't like this on Super Mario World²⁶!" Then I'd go and play Super Mario World for the first time in ages and realise that things weren't quite as I'd remembered them...

(laughs)

I'd say things like: "Wow! The recent titles are really well put together, aren't they!" (laughs)

26	Super Mario World was a platform game released in Japan along with the Super Famicom in November 1990. It was the fourth title in the series.

I'm sure you're looking at the past through rose-tinted spectacles! (laughs) That "feel" you're talking about is something that changes in step with the times. It isn't something universal and unchanging.

You're right about that. And add to that the fact that now we can see things in incredibly fine detail. In the old days, you would fill in the detail yourself using your imagination, while nowadays you can actually see all that fine detail… But it's not necessarily the case that, just because something has been made with attention to the fine detail, it's actually always better. If I may make a bold distinction, I'd say that there are times that encoding and simplifying something makes it easier to understand, while there are times that expressing something in very fine detail is more pleasing.

That variation is important, isn't it?

The same is true of audio. It's not the case that you can use nothing but sampled sound effects. With Zelda, when we only used a sampled sound effect for the rumbling of rocks, that made it feel incredibly real.

You really pay a huge amount of attention to sound effects. Perhaps that's because they can have an impact on the "feel" of the game.

Right. Sound effects are extremely important to me. Take, for instance,
Propeller Mario who appears in this title. I thought there was something odd about the sound of the propeller and asked the staff working on the audio side to fix it. But this seemed to cause them a great deal of trouble.

They weren't sure how to fix it?

So I explained to them: "Try to make it sound like a beetle flying!"

A beetle? (laughs)

So they said: "Thanks for making it so clear! We've got it!" (laughs) So they went and fixed it but, as you can imagine, it was completely different from what I had envisioned. So then I said: "Let's ditch the beetle idea after all..." (laughs)

(laughs)

The staff didn't have a clue what to do anymore, so I asked them what the propeller was made from.

You asked what raw materials the propeller was made from?

Well, of course a suit with a propeller attached to the helmet isn't something that actually exists in the real world!

(laughs)

So I asked them: "How is this powered anyway? Is it an engine or a motor?"

That's something that wouldn't have been in the specifications for the game, so I'm sure it's something they hadn't thought about at all, right? (laughs)

They told me that there was no way they could possibly answer that. Then I say: "But if you had to choose one, would you lean towards it being an engine or a motor? Or is it some kind of hybrid?"

So you would keep asking them again and again in order to try to get the right sound to fit the image you had!

If you don't settle on a fixed sound, you won't be able to tell the difference when the propeller's turning slowly or quickly.

I see.

After I asked about it so much, I realised that whatever was powering this propeller would be pretty heavy, so I said: "Don't you think it would be best if Mario's neck was tilting a little?"

(laughs)

All kinds of ideas came out it. Things like: "Shouldn't there be some kind of helmet attack?" When you bring things together in a natural way, they will connect and spawn whole new ideas… This is the creativity that comes from letting things take their own course! (laughs)

Creativity that comes from letting things take their own course! (laughs) Out of interest, what did you finally settle on for the sound of Propeller Mario?

When you turn a normal propeller with your hand, it makes a kind of "Broom! Broom!" sound, doesn't it? But we thought that there probably wouldn't be any petrol in Propeller Mario's engine. That's why we went for a propeller with a whirring sound.

I see.

It's a pretty responsive engine, perhaps a kind of hybrid... Is it a high torque engine that you have to turn by hand? Well, I don't think we've decided on that one yet...

(laughs)

There's something I've learned from making this new Mario title multiplayer.

And what's that?

I realised that, fundamentally, Mario is a game where if you fail and lose a turn, you'll be sent straight back to the start.

Right.

So it's tough. Even if you're just about to get to the boss, you could fall into the lava, get burned and be sent straight back and have to start again from scratch.

It's very unforgiving when you fail.

Right. So even if you slip up just before clearing the castle, you'll be sent right back to the starting point. Maybe this is all due to my nasty streak! (laughs) But I think playing at that level of intensity is actually the most enjoyable way to play.

You think it's more fun to have to play from the start of the level again?

With platform games, only playing the difficult parts can really take it out of you. It feels good to play parts that you can breeze through as well.

Yes, you're right about that.

That's one of my guiding principles...

That's why rather than having lots of checkpoints where you can save your position, it's better to play through the easy part again.

Right. That's more pleasurable for the player. And while you're playing the parts that you're good at again, you'll get even better at the game. In the past, when arcade shooting games would keep getting more and more difficult, the "Continue" system was developed...

Insert a 100 yen coin and you can keep on playing...

That was doubtless something the arcade was happy about, as players would keep pumping in 100 yen pieces. But what it actually ended up doing is ensuring that the player would always be playing at the very limit of their abilities. I don't think it feels good to play like that.

You're right.

It might be exciting, but it doesn't feel good.

So it might be thrilling for the player, but it doesn't give them that sense that: "Hey, I'm really good at this game!"

Precisely!

All the player experiences is that feeling that: "I'm still useless at this!"

But once someone makes the assumption that always playing in a high state of nervous excitement is more fun, and they then come to discussing how the gameplay should be balanced, they'll always be trying to ramp up that excitement. But the ideal is actually to make the player feel this kind of nervous excitement in moderation while being able to enjoy playing. However, it is not very easy for us to be able to realise that at all times. So, I think replaying the levels is the correct way to enjoy an action game. That's something that I'm quite particular about.

But that won't work when you have four players.

Right, it won't work. In this case, it works out just right because if you have one of the four players who is still alive, you can steadily progress through the game.

As you can still make progress even if you lose a turn, when weaker players play together with more skilled ones, they can get them to take them all the way through to the end.

Right. That's why I think we've come up with a well-balanced game that comes somewhere in between watching the Super Guide and then clearing the level yourself and getting the Super Guide to clear the level for you. That's why I hope that a wide range of users will be able to enjoy the game in a wide variety of different ways.

I sense that you're really getting a very strong "feel" from this game.

Of course!

It seems that you feel you've been able to achieve a structure for this game that you've long aimed for.

Yes, I have. I've always wanted to make a multiplayer Mario. It's been my dream for many years. I really feel that this time, we've pulled it off.

Recently, you have become deeply absorbed in a large number of the games that we've made. But with New Super Mario Bros. Wii, there is clearly something different about the depth and the manner in which you've become absorbed.

Well, I was even writing specification documents! (laughs)

(laughs) You've really worked incredibly hard on this one! At the 2009 E3, I spoke about Nintendo wanting to make "games for everyone." It's become commonplace to assume that as games continue to develop, they will steadily become more clearly divided between games for very skilled players and games for beginners. But the motivation behind my speech was my strong belief that in order to further expand the gaming population, it's necessary to make games that everyone can enjoy, regardless of their abilities. Now, perhaps it's because they consider this completely unfeasible, but this isn't something that a lot of other people seem to discuss. But in spite of that, I am very serious when it comes to making "games for everyone" and this is something, Miyamoto-san, which you and I have been talking about constantly for over a decade. The impression I get is that with Mario, which is in no sense an easy type of game for such a purpose, you have actually gone and done it - you've made a "game for everyone."

I'm quite excited to see how this new Mario title will be played. There'll be plenty of players who will feel: "Wow! I can do this!" At the same time, players who are confident in their abilities won't feel that the game is too tame and we'll see them erasing their data and playing from the start to ensure that no hint blocks pop up.

Can I just add something else?

Sure, go ahead.

This game is played by holding the Wii Remote horizontally so you only use the +Control Pad and the 1 and 2 Buttons to play.

It's the same controls as the Famicom days.

But you're going to have to master the "B Button Dash"²⁷. If you can't do that, you're going to have a hard time. On the Wii Remote, holding the 1 Button down lets you carry round objects and also enables you to do the "B Button Dash". Moreover, the Wii Remote's unique motion-sensitive controls also come into play when you're controlling the game. So if you remember to shake the Wii Remote and to press the 1 Button, the game will be really exciting to play.

27	In New Super Mario Bros. Wii, the player can make Mario dash by holding the 1 Button down and moving left or right.

So in this new title, you can dash using the 1 Button on the Wii Remote. What are you going to call this?

The "B Button Dash" of course! (laughs)