Today, I am going to hear stories about the Punch-Out!! series. It may sound odd to call them this within the company, but some very special guests have joined us this time. I think Tanabe-san, who made the Wii version of Punch-Out!! might be feeling a little uncomfortable. (laughs)

Well, I am a little nervous. (laughs)

(laughs) Initially the game Punch-Out!! was born as an arcade game. Takeda-san from the Integrated Research and Development Division made the game and Miyamoto-san drew the artwork. We made two arcade games and Wada-san took over when they were to be ported to the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) and Super NES later.

That’s right. I’m a bit nervous, too. (laughs)

Twenty two years have passed since the NES version of the game. And now Tanabe-san has just worked with Next Level Games Inc.¹ in Canada to make a Wii version of Punch-Out!! And since we are on the subject, I think I would like to start by asking what led to the Punch-Out!! series being created?

1	Next Level Games Inc.: A Canadian software development company that created Super Mario Strikers (Nintendo GameCube) and Mario Strikers Charged (Wii).

Okay. Hello, my name is Takeda, the game designer.

(roaring laughter)

You were the first, weren’t you Takeda-san?

The first game designer?

That’s right. He started making video games even before (Gunpei) Yokoi-san².

2	Mr. Gunpei Yokoi (1941-1997): When he worked at Nintendo, he was involved with such game hardware as the Game & Watch and the Game Boy, as well as other projects like ROB the NES robot and Dr. Mario.

Then he’s Nintendo’s first game designer.

Well, when you put it like that... (laughs)

I wish I could say this better, but I think almost everyone’s impression of you is that you’re very much a hardware person. Takeda-san has been working in home console hardware for the past several years and I think most people would be very surprised if they heard that you used to make software. To start, could you tell me how it was decided to make the arcade version of Punch-Out!!?

There were two key reasons. We made Punch-Out!! around 1983, so this story took place about 26 years ago, and at that time Nintendo was making a variety of coin-operated arcade games. However, we had an excess of televisions in stock to use for monitors.

You’re going to start from there? (laughs)

(looks confused)

Anyway, we had a bunch of televisions left over. (laughs) We had to do something with them.

The Donkey Kong³ series was selling well and we just kept buying monitors for it at the same pace.

3	Donkey Kong: Arcade game released in 1981. Click to enlarge

The televisions were not being used. Tons of them were in our Uji Plant.

So you’re saying that there were a lot of excess televisions that had been purchased based on the estimated demand for arcade games.

That’s correct. So we were given this proposition: Create a new arcade game that uses two televisions.

Two televisions? (laughs)

Two televisions could use up more stock than one. Well, that’s what happened anyway.

But the idea of using two televisions doesn’t really lead to a boxing game.

Usually that would be true, but there was another reason. There was a new type of substrate (computer chip) available, and it made it possible to zoom in on an object.

So what you mean by zooming in is that it could expand and shrink the object being displayed on the monitor, right?

Normally, if you made a game that used expanding/shrinking, it was something that involved flying - like a flight simulator. But we chose boxing as a theme because we thought there was a different way to use the feature.

Still, no matter how I think about it, I’m having a hard time mentally linking shrinking and expanding to a boxing game. (laughs)

I admit that you can’t say they fit together very well.

(laughs)

This is a long story; do you mind?

Go ahead.

A long time ago, Takeda-san made an arcade game called EVR Race⁴.

4	EVR Race: A game released in 1975. It was a horse racing game where players had to predict the winning horse. Click to enlarge

The horse race game we released around 1975. When that was made, Miyamoto-san was...

Still a student. (laughs) EVR Race was the first video game Nintendo released.

So that’s why Takeda-san is Nintendo’s first game designer.

Right. EVR Race was a video game that used a videotape. It was a so-called "mechanical game", so apparently it was really hard to maintain after Nintendo released it.

It was mechanical, so there were a lot of breakdowns.

Right. Also, when we were making Punch-Out!!, people were saying that laserdisc games⁵ would be the next big thing. However, we knew that the maintenance would be really difficult if we sold laserdisc games worldwide.

5	Laserdisc games: A name for video games that used a laserdisc to display video. Also called LD games.

In other words, we learned that maintenance was really difficult from our experience with EVR Race.

Right. But domestic sales people wanted something like the laserdisc, so we were investigating whether it could be done with semiconductors. That’s why we were so interested in that substrate that could do zooming and show pictures at a similar size as a laserdisc. If you ask me though, it was a rascal of a project. (laughs)

A rascal? (laughs)

We had just released Donkey Kong then, and, for example, to make an image like a rolling barrel, I had to make a pixel drawing for each frame.

Everything was done by hand.

That’s why it took a lot of time and effort. When I asked if they could use processing on the hardware side to rotate the image, they would say, "It’s not impossible." At the time, "It can’t be done" was changing into "It’s not impossible." A lot of new things were being created then, but most of it wasn’t useful yet.

Everything was still being developed.

They said that we could make things bigger with zoom functions. But we still couldn’t rotate. On the other hand, we could rotate it, but they couldn’t display it larger. They also said that even if we enlarged it, we could only display one. "So we can only roll one barrel then?" (laughs)

(laughs) You can’t make Donkey Kong with just one barrel.

At that point, we were going to use the substrate and we also had this proposition to use two televisions, so we looked into lining them up side by side and making a big racing game, but it wasn’t nearly powerful enough to do something like that, because it could only enlarge one image.

(laughs)

Then Takeda-san said, "If we can only use one image, how about making it a person?" That’s how the theme became boxing: we could have just one opponent. But one monitor would be enough for a boxing game, right?

You don’t need two televisions. (laughs).

We were stuck for a little bit by that. But then, we thought that a boxing arena has big lights and banners hanging from the ceiling with things like "World Heavyweight Title Match" written on them. The game would have a lot of meters as well, so we thought maybe having two screens would be more fun and we tried stacking two screens vertically. It felt good, so we decided to use two screens.

Click to enlarge

Following the release of Game & Watch, it was another game using dual screens.

Nintendo has been thinking about using two screens for 25 years, hasn’t it? (laughs)

There was another advantage that came from using two screens.

What was that?

By showing character images in a detailed resolution on the upper screen, players could form an image in their head. That’s why, whilst people were playing, the nicer image of the character they saw on the upper screen remained in their head even if the graphics on the lower screen, where you actually played, were a little rough.

At the very beginning, all we could display on the lower screen was a puny little boxer because when we made him bigger the image looked too rough. But we wanted to show an intense fight, so we tried zooming by 1.5 times. When we did that, it was unexpectedly hard to tell the difference. I was working together with Takeda-san to come up with mechanisms like this as we made the game. So the training from that time...

Became a good experience for you later in life as a game designer.

That’s right.

By the way, why were you involved with the development of the original Punch-Out!!?

At the time, I was in the Planning Department, which was the section that did design.

What kind of work were you doing there?

I did design for the entire company. I did advertisements, game design, and I went to any areas in the company that needed design work - I worked everywhere, so I was like a support staff member.

So when one department needed artwork, they would call you and you would go there and start drawing.

Back then, Takeda-san had been working as a game designer at Research and Development Department 3.

Research and Development Department 3. That is what the current Integrated Research and Development division used to be.

Right. Research and Development Department 3 made the entire game - from designing the substrate to making the software, but they didn’t have anyone on the staff to draw pictures.

That’s why they called you.

Well, at the time, it was still a small company. I was on the same floor as Takeda-san’s team, so I would often come and go.

What was the first project you worked on together?

I think it was Sheriff⁶, wasn’t it?

6	Sheriff: A shooting game where you fought sixteen desperadoes that surrounded you. Wario Ware Inc.: Minigame Mania (Game Boy Advance) featured it as a mini-game.

The arcade game we made in 1979, right?

Click to enlarge

So the first time you worked together was on Sheriff? I used to play that a lot back then. (laughs)

I used to draw an audience at arcades in Kyoto. (laughs)

An audience? I’m sure your smooth demonstrations would draw an audience. (laughs)

By the time I noticed, there would be a huge group watching me and I would be really surprised. (laughs)

(laughter)

When we made Sheriff, I drew pixel images with another designer and we started searching for materials for the machine’s housing. We would talk about wanting to make a new unit that was like no other one in the world. So we even went to a company that did the interior of airplanes.

The interior of airplanes?

This company could make wood grain prints that looked like natural wood. So we bought these stickers and attached them to the cabinet and made it look like an old American saloon. At any rate, back then, I was doing all of the design from the content of the game to the housing.

Your background was industrial design, so you must’ve been good at that.

I enjoyed it. After that, Takeda-san made a shooting game called Space Firebird⁷ which came out next, and I drew all of the pictures of the characters. We made Popeye⁸ together as well, one year after Donkey Kong.

Click to enlarge

7	Space Firebird: An arcade shooting game released in 1980 where you shot down a "phoenix" that flew around space.

8	Popeye: An action arcade game released in 1982 where you control the popular cartoon character Popeye. A NES version was also released.

So that’s why Miyamoto-san naturally ended up involved in Punch-Out!!. By the way, how did the game design start on this game?

I was originally thinking of a realistic input device.

The first time I heard that, I was very surprised. He was saying boxing should be played with gloves on the player’s hands and that he would like to use an interface like a glove. As someone who plays video games I told him that I didn’t like ambiguous interfaces. Or ones that were hard to figure out. That’s why we decided to use a joystick and buttons to make it as easy as possible to understand. Then we made the framework for the gameplay and the picture patterns. But by then Takeda-san’s interest was already in a different direction. He started focusing on making the details of the game. He would say things like, this opponent’s weakness is his chin, so let’s call him "Glass Joe." He wasn’t even a designer. (laughs)

(laughs)

There is an opponent from Italy named Pizza Pasta. Did Takeda-san name him too?

That means that he sticks around and is hard to beat down.

Like the way cheese on pizza is sticky. (laughs) No matter how hard I try, I can’t make myself believe, that you, an engineer who excels at thinking about things extremely logically, came up with a name like Pizza Pasta. (laughs)

Actually, Takeda-san is a pretty free-spirited person. (laughs)

The reason I was so focused on the boxing gloves and the naming of the characters was because I had the American market in mind.

Glass Joe /Von Kaiser/King Hippo/Bald Bull

(These illustrations show characters that appear in the NES version of Punch-Out!!)

The American arcade game market was very big at that time.

It was, so the process involved making the game while keeping in very close contact with the staff at NOA (Nintendo of America). Back then, NOA only did marketing and sales, so I thought they might have a little interest in participating in development.

That wasn’t long after NOA had been established, right?

They’ve all moved up now, but then I asked the young staff members to do voices such as the referee’s voice, or the play-by-play.

In those days, the idea of voice actors in video games simply wasn’t around.

Also, America was really the centre of the boxing world, so I made sure to get a lot of input from the staff at NOA while making the game.

Did you send material under development to America and have people look at it?

There was no email then and you couldn’t send a substrate for a game very easily.

You had to get it through customs.

That’s why I remember sending images and specification sheets by fax.

Compared to now it was probably a lot more troublesome.

After finishing the game, I forget whether this was 1983 or ‘84, we displayed it at a show in New Orleans, and we called the current world heavyweight champion Larry Holmes⁹. We had a presentation where we demoed the game in front of everyone.

9	Larry Holmes: A former world heavyweight champion who rose to stardom after Muhammad Ali’s retirement.

You demoed the gameplay?

Actually, it wasn’t me, it was Larry Holmes. (laughs) I had him sign some boxing gloves and they were always on display in the Research and Development 3’s room.

Did you bring those gloves here today?

No I didn’t bring them today, but I’m sure they are stored carefully somewhere. (laughs)

Glove signed by Larry Holmes

There was one more thing going on when we made Punch-Out!!

What was that?

Up until that point, in pixel images, we had been drawing every image one by one, but we had started basic experiments with drawing rough sketches and loading them directly into the game. Then it would be possible to have even professional animators draw for us.

Actually, I think it was a little different... (laughs)

Different? (laughs)

Well, this story is 25 years-old. There are bound to be some differences in memory. (laughs)

The tool for importing pictures as they were drawn by an animator wasn’t remotely useable.

(laughs)

That’s why we printed giant, desk-sized sheets of graph paper and drew everything by hand.

You could import that though...

Actually, importing that as data just made it easier for the programmer, but not for the designer.

(laughter)

Because we had to draw giant pixel images, all by hand. It was just a process that automated inputting the pixel images we drew with a scanner.

So you drew all of the images, Miyamoto-san? There are some pretty unique opponents in the game.

Up until that point, I had been drawing everything myself, but I got scared when I had to draw the big boxers for Punch-Out!! I thought there was no way I could draw them with my drawing ability.

Needing to display them at 1.5 times with the zoom function meant you needed to make much bigger drawings than usual.

So I drew several pictures of boxers and I took them to (Takao) Kozai-san’s Studio Junio¹⁰, in Tokyo.

10	Studio Junio: The animation company established by the animator Takao Kozai after he left Toei Motion Pictures. The current name is Junio Brain Trust.

He was the animator for New Star of the Giants, and Sally the Witch, right?

Right. That was the first time I had ever associated with an animator. I explained things to him while he looked at the pictures in a café, and he complemented me by saying, "You sure draw interesting pictures." No matter how I looked at them though, they were poorly done.

(laughs)

He spends all day looking at well-drawn pictures, so a unique picture is more...

Probably more interesting. (laughs)

So he apparently thought my drawings contained a lot of ideas. When he said, "You draw really great pictures," it was really encouraging to me. I came back to Kyoto all excited about that, and after a week, my original drawings came back as beautiful cells. They were coloured in pretty colours and I thought that now they really looked like boxers. (laughs)

That’s why I said that we had outsourced to a professional animator.

That was the only part that was the same. (laughs)

(laughter)

Rather than having everything after that automated, it was a huge job. (laughs) First we showed the cells to Takeda-san, and he liked them, so we designed them bit by bit. The punch, jab, and other arm movements, the side view of the face, were all divided into various parts and we had them all made into cells.

So they could be animated.

So we got the cells back, enlarged them, and put them on the giant tracing paper I mentioned before, and we transferred them one by one to pixel images. But I couldn’t do all of it alone, so I drew the outline and a woman who was assisting me coloured it. Then we brought it to Takeda-san.

It sounds like that took a lot of effort. (laughs)

I don’t remember that very well. Was the tool finished when we did Super Punch-Out!!¹¹?

11	Super Punch-Out!!: An arcade action game released in 1985 as a sequel to Punch-Out!!

I think so. I remember it was really hard work when we did Punch-Out!!, but much of Super Punch-Out!! was automated. The first game was really hard work, but it was fun. It was the first time I’d gotten to work with animators and it lead to me meeting Mr. Kotabe¹² and Mr. Maeda¹³, who used to draw Dr. Slump. I asked him to do illustrations when we made Zelda and we worked on Excitebike together.

12	Mr. Kotabe: Mr. Yoichi Kotabe created the cartoon Heidi of the Alps. He joined Nintendo after leaving Toei Animation and he was involved in the character design, etc. of Mario. Currently works as a freelancer.

13	Mr. Maeda: Mr. Minoru Maeda is an animator. He was the chief animation director for several hits such as Dr. Slump/Arare-chan, Dragonball, Touch, etc.

Being worried about not being able to draw pictures of big boxers lead to a lot of things down the road. (laughs)

That’s right. To me, Punch-Out!! was a game that created a lot of connections with a lot of people.

Did you draw anything besides the pixel art?

I drew the player and the referee. That’s why the quality of those characters is a big step down from the opponents that Studio Junio drew. (laughs)

Mario and Donkey Kong are also in the audience.

That’s right. I was trying to put Mario in a lot of other games, so I thought this was a good opportunity. Also, you can see cameras flashing in the stadium and I think I was the first in the world to do that.

The sequel, Super Punch-Out!!, was released in...

The next year, in 1985.

Click to enlarge

Thanks to everyone, Punch-Out!! was a big hit. We were getting lots of reports saying that the arcade machines were getting a lot of coins put in them, so people were asking us to make a sequel. We didn’t know what to do. We did everything we could do with boxing. The only thing we could do was to include illegal moves, and that’s why we made it so anything goes and had characters who would kick, or were like martial artists. And that became Super Punch-Out!!.

You had crossed the limits of a boxing game.

The last half has some incredible moves. Like one guy jump kicking from rope to rope. (laughs)

It wasn’t supposed to be a pro wrestling game. (laughs)

That was all Takeda-san, the freewheeling man.

We had a serious discussion about having them carry weapons. But we decided that it would be too strange. (laughs)

(laughs)

How were you related to that project, Miyamoto-san?

I was just providing support with the images, so I wasn’t really involved with the final fine-tuning process, either.

Still, I’m having a hard time imagining the two of you in deep discussion while working on Punch-Out!! in the past as you have just explained. (laughs) But those are your roots.

Super Punch-Out!! was the last one we worked together on though.

That’s right. Until the Nintendo 64 era...

I was already in the hardware division by then.

So Super Punch-Out!! was the last game you developed together. I’d like to ask Miyamoto-san what he thinks the characteristics of Takeda-san’s game design are.

In one word: freewheeling.

Like the name Pizza Pasta. (laughs)

He has a very active imagination. That’s why there was a lot to learn from him. For example, when given a difficult new request, a lot of people would think, "How am I supposed to do that?" Takeda-san is the kind of person who thinks, "Let’s somehow find our own way to do it." In the era when there was no standard formula on how to make video games in the first place, there were two schools of thought: the people who went to companies that could make video games and the people who would try and make games themselves. Takeda-san raised the banner of the latter, and he is still driving this era at Nintendo. He was just a little too ahead of his time.

Ahead of his time?

Now with Wii, motion sensors are taken for granted, but at the time, a glove interface was a little ahead of its time.

I see. (laughs)

People like Takeda-san are people who think of things ten years in the future. I think my role is to try and make it fit in the current era, and to translate that into the present style.

It will be a problem if we don’t manage to ever introduce the new product so…

I came today because I wanted to talk about the past. (laughs)

(laughter)

There are a lot of interesting stories and I want to hear more, but I think we should start talking about the NES version. Wada-san, could you please tell us about how Punch-Out!!, which had been made this way, came to be released on the NES and Super Nintendo?

We were making the NES version of Punch-Out!! right after I joined Nintendo. Up until that point, Research and Development Department 3 did not have a dedicated designer and I was the first person to be a designer there. At the time, Takeda-san was the main person drawing the pictures.

In the NES version, too. (laughs)

I was just a young pup then and he wouldn’t let me touch anything.

(laughter)

The memory limitations on the NES were severe, so we had to break the pictures into parts and rotate them, or call up these parts partially. But no matter how you looked at the drawn images, the proportions were strange.

(laughs)

But when you actually made them move, the movements started looking right. I thought that this is how you make video games. I was impressed and I wanted to get my hands on them as well.

You wanted to get in there and you were all excited to work, but they wouldn’t let you, huh? (laughs)

They wouldn’t let me touch anything at all. Right.

Even though you were hired as a designer. (laughs)

You were still in your first year then.

When did you join Nintendo, Wada-san?

1986.

The same year as me.

You joined in the same year?

I clearly remember Wada-san grumbling about not being able to touch the tools.

(laughs)

This is a great opportunity, so I have something I’d like to say. In Punch-Out!!, the game gives you a lot of hints about effective timing of punches. There is a big boxer called Bald Bull in the NES version, and when he charges a light flashes to the right in the audience. If you punch when it flashes you will land a body blow.

What? Really?

Nobody has known about that for about 22 years…

(laughter)

I was wondering when I would have a chance to tell people that.

You’ve been holding that information for 22 years since the release. (laughs)

Now that I had the chance. (laughs) There are a lot of hidden elements in the NES version.

So Wada-san, when did they finally let you touch the game?

Well for example, before the bout, when you see the display with the larger faces in the opponent’s introduction.

The portraits.

They finally let me draw those pictures. Also, Mario became the referee for the NES version, and I drew that myself without permission.

This image comes from the Punch-Out!! (NES version) currently distributed on the Virtual Console.

You could get away with a lot then. (laughs)

We didn’t have an approval system when using Mario images back then and it went right past my check. (laughs)

That’s why it is a slightly strange looking Mario.

(laughs)

But I went to all of that work and it was just a golf prize.

A golf prize?

Even though it was sold in a nice package in America, in Japan, it was a prize for the “Second Family Computer Golf Tournament.”¹⁴

14	Second Family Computer Golf Tournament: A golf tournament for players that used the Famicom Disc System’s golf game Golf (US Course), which was released in June, 1987.

I wrote the program for the Golf (US Course) used in that tournament.

That’s right. And the cartridges for the prizes were gold and really nice, but the game still wasn’t for sale.

Click to enlarge

But after we gave out those prizes, we started hearing that a lot of people wanted it.

That’s why, within a year, they started selling it normally.

After that, there was a Super Nintendo version.

We released it in 1998, eleven years after the NES version.

So I’m sure at the time Takeda-san didn’t start this on his own?

Not at that time. (laughs) The Nintendo 64, which Takeda-san had been involved in, had already been released (in Japan).

Was the content of the Super Nintendo version pretty close to the arcade version? Or did it have elements just for the home audience?

It was more or less unchanged.

I think it was pretty hard because we did introduce a lot of new characters.

Just a few minutes ago, Mr. Iwata was talking about this not being a pro wrestling game, but even in the original arcade version of Super Punch-Out!!, a lot of different kinds of characters appeared. We continued with that and created a lot of strange ones. For example, there was this opponent who dressed like a clown, throwing balls. (laughs)

Did you think up all of those characters?

At that point, there were several people in the design staff and we thought them up together. The Japanese version was for rewritable media.

It was for Nintendo Power¹⁵.

15	Nintendo Power: A Japan-only dedicated service for the Super Famicom [Japanese Super Nintendo] and Game Boy that used terminals (Loppi) placed in Lawson [a Japanese convenience store chain] or at Nintendo service centres. The service started in 1997 and ended in 2007.

So it wasn’t sold in a package that time, either.

They did it to you again.

(laughter)

Sorry for making you wait so long, Tanabe-san.

That’s fine.

You were responsible for the mission of resurrecting games made by Genyo Takeda, Nintendo’s first game designer. Why did you do this project?

It all started from Next Level Games wanting to do this game.

You made Mario Strikers Charged¹⁶ with Canada’s Next Level Games, right?

16	Mario Strikers Charged: An action/soccer game released in September, 2007 for Wii.

Right. After we finished Mario Strikers Charged, we discussed what we would do next. I had heard that they wanted to make a new version of one of Nintendo’s properties, and since Punch-Out!! has been consistently popular in America, they said that they would really like to make a new version.

NOA has been asking for a new version of Punch-Out!! for a long time as well.

What was the first thing Takeda-san or Miyamoto-san said when you discussed this with them after returning to Japan?

First, I went to Miyamoto-san and he told me to go get permission from Takeda-san first.

Because he originally made the game. What was Takeda-san’s reaction?

I thought that I wanted to keep the development time short, so instead of thinking of a lot of new things, I just wanted to work with what was there. However, Takeda-san said, “Are you going to do anything new?”

Punch-Out!! was originally an arcade game, so it has simple elements that are meant to show the customer the fun the game has to offer within three minutes. If everyone enjoyed the simplicity of the game, that would be fine, but when I first heard this, I wondered if that would be enough now.

So you felt like, “Why do this now?”

That’s why I said, “You can change anything you want.”

Forget about the original, and do whatever you want. What did you think about this, Tanabe-san?

I didn’t know what to do. (laughs)

It’s hard to know what to do when someone says to do whatever you want. (laughs)

At that point, I thoroughly played the NES version. I realised that the degree of completion in the original is very high, almost to the point where you don’t need to add anything else. Unique opponents appear one after another and I thought the sensation of solving a puzzle by figuring out the timing of punches and the opportunities to strike - like when the opponent’s eyes sparkle - was done really well.

It was a forerunner of memory games.

I agree.

The gameplay is a balance between memorising the opponent’s patterns and reflexes.

The arcade version was over in three minutes, but I added the memorisation elements so you could play longer on the NES version.

That’s why I thought I would pattern the Wii version on the NES version. The game system didn’t really need anything new. That’s why beating opponents the first time through is almost the same as on the NES. The characters are the same and only one new character has been added.

So people who played the NES version can easily fight if they remember the old way to beat the opponents.

Right. I think the first time through they can beat them easily. But the second time, it becomes much more difficult. Also, it is made so that beginners can get to the third person or so just by throwing punches.

The graphics have changed a lot though.

We took the original design and made it into 3D and rendered it using cell- shading. This really made the presentation stronger; especially the fighter introductions. For example, if it was Glass Joe…

The weak-chinned Frenchman. (laughs)

This was Next Level Games’ idea, but the first thing that comes to mind when people say French is fashion. So we had him appear in an elegant manner while drinking coffee in front of the Arc de Triomphe and holding up French bread in front of the Eiffel Tower. Then, it switches to the boxing ring.

There aren’t any French people like that!

Oh, yeah... (laughs)

(laughter)

Then in the rematch with Glass Joe, he is wearing headgear.

So you can’t hit his weak chin. (laughs)

That’s right. We use Wii’s improved display abilities to make the game even more visually appealing and fun, but…

But?

I kept remembering what Takeda-san said.

“Are you going to do something new?” The original creator’s words have a certain weight don’t they? (laughs)

They really do. That’s why we decided to support the Wii Balance Board.

Compatibility with the Wii Balance Board worked better than expected, didn’t it? Changing your balance could make your body move left or right, or duck.

It was an interesting sensation, but when the input gets severe…

It might not fit in the sense of capturing Punch-Out!!, but I think it is successful in being interesting.

You can enjoy the feeling of actually boxing. I think I responded to Takeda-san’s proposition of adding something new by supporting multiplayer.

You can fight one on one.

Both players are Little Mac, but if you fill the Giga Mac Juice Meter all of the way, you can change into a giant version of Little Mac called Giga Mac.

You change into a really large character.

When this happens, you get a situation where you fight against a larger character like in single player. But even more, the punches become very powerful and trying to survive that is fun. We added an element where you freeze when you throw a punch and your opponent dodges it. If your opponent hits you while you are frozen, their meter for turning into Giga Mac goes up, so it creates a situation where you want to avoid throwing meaningless punches. That’s how these tactical elements were made.

So more than a game of reflexes, it is a psychological game?

There are those elements. We were able to add elements for those who want to play the game at a deeper level. But, in the end, many times, once you get excited, the psychological match vanishes and it just turns into a brawl. (laughs)

(laughs)

When we put in those specifications, the debug team was having a great time. We asked NOA to do the debugging and apparently every Friday, they had tournaments. There were tournament charts hung up on the wall.

Are they working or playing? (laughs)

They all said it was a game they enjoyed to the end and I thought that I had managed to respond to Takeda-san’s challenge to add something new.

I wonder why a game design created over 25 years ago is still so much fun today?

I think that the basic elements that make games fun or exciting don’t change regardless of how many years have passed. However, as games have gotten more and more complicated and sometimes lost sight of simple fun experiences, I think a game like this feels even fresher. Things that are fun are still fun no matter how much time passes.

What do you think, Wada-san?

I think this is because boxing is a very easy sport to understand. The rules are very simple - you thump your opponent and the person who knocks the other person down wins. With a structure that simple, I think even people who have not played the old games will find it very fresh.

Tanabe-san just mentioned that story about NOA and I think that most of those people are young and have never experienced the old Punch-Out!! Do you think that the reason they have enjoyed it was because they enjoyed the memory game aspect, which this game had opened up the genre for?

Probably. The basic reasoning of the game is very clear. For example, in an FPS¹⁷, there may be some elements of memorisation, but playing in a battlefield is simply a matter of surviving the attacks from various people. Then, you have something like Super Mario, which has completely different elements and it is just a matter of how to pass by characters who are just moving around on their own.

17	FPS: An abbreviation of first person shooter. A shooting game that takes place from the perspective of the main character.

(laughs)

The other characters aren’t aware that Mario is coming. They are just going about, minding their own business, and they suddenly become his opponent.

(laughter)

Memorisation games, however, have clear rules that are easy to understand. They have tactics and they show well defined game elements, so even though they are video games too, the way they are played is completely different. The game design of PUNCH-OUT!! is very well defined and it pares the fun of a game down to just its core, so it is probably suited for this era in which everyone says they don’t have time.

That’s why if we could have them try it...

They will immediately understand why it’s good.

It has a wide range of things that can be enjoyed.

That’s true, but the bar is definitely raised as you progress in the game.

What do you think, Takeda-san?

I felt this when I made the arcade game. At the time I had worked hard on directing the game, like how the opponent would do this and that, but the cash box filled up with a lot of coins.

A lot of people put in their coins and played the game.

What I suddenly understood at the time was the reason the customers put in their coins was not for a realistic interpretation of boxing, but because they were attracted to the root of the sport. This is similar to what Wada-san just said, but everyone knows about boxing and I think it is something that many people know well, but a sport they probably haven’t participated in. The excitement felt when showering an opponent with blows and knocking him down to the floor is the real thing. I think the biggest reason the game was appreciated was the basic allure of boxing.

So the biggest reason for the success was that you chose boxing, a decision derived from a proposition to use two televisions and a substrate that could only display one large person then?

I think so.

So finally, I would like to have each of our guests make a comment. Let’s start with Wada-san.

This is the first time a Punch-Out!! game is being sold in a package in Japan in 22 years.

Are you jealous because it is in a package?

Yes. A little bit. (laughs)

(laughter)

I think this game is more within reach for customers than before. So I would like it if they could pick up this game and experience the roots of what makes video games entertaining. This is mostly patterned on the NES version, so I can guarantee that it’s fun.

Okay. Tanabe-san.

Over 22 years have passed, so I think many of the people who enjoyed the NES version are now fathers. If you can remember the tricks, you can easily win the first match and impress your child. I would be happy if you played the multiplayer mode with your kids.

This game was released two months ago in America (May 2009) and it is selling at a steady pace from week to week. I have heard from people at NOA that people who used to play this game on the NES are now fathers and are playing it with their sons. Okay, Miyamoto-san.

Now, when young game designers make games and they are not fun, they add a lot of new material to try and make it fun. Even though they should make the game more fun using what they have right in front of them, they bring in new stuff.

They add more and more new material and try and draw out some fun.

They add more and more. This has been the recent trend in game design. But it looks like they made this version of Punch-Out!! by going back to the basics of game design. However, I think it is an easy game to understand, so I ask mothers to ignore any game allergy and give it a try if there is a Wii nearby. I think mums will find it exhilarating too.

So finally, Takeda-san please.

I would like it if not only people who played the arcade or NES versions in the past, but if new people would also give the game a try and experience the fun of boxing.

I will make the last comment then. I think this game will be very fun for people trying it for the first time as well as people who played the game before in the arcades or on the NES or Super Nintendo. On the other hand, this game was born in an era when video games were more compact and this product brings the design back in a modern style. The game design is very simple, but people get drawn into it and want to play it again and again. That’s why I would like people who have been playing games for many years to enjoy this interesting structure. There aren’t many games like this being released anymore, so my hope is that people that enjoy this particular type of video game will increase, by even one person, among the people who have been fans of video games for years and those who are new to games.

Takeda-san, that’s pretty exciting, isn’t it?

It is.

We can look forward to that, but don’t you think we are going to be getting a lot of requests from the people reading this for Takeda-san to make games again?

(laughter)

Then we will probably be overwhelmed with requests for you to draw more pictures, Miyamoto-san.

I hope not.

(laughter)