satoru-iwata
December 15th, 2009 at 10:30pm
Under Wii / Nintendo
In the most recent edition of Iwata Asks, Nintendo prez Satoru Iwata gathers up Takashi Tezuka and Toshihiko Nakago for a thorough discussion of their time with the company, the many projects they’ve worked on and their 25-year-long partnership with Shigeru Miyamoto. Let’s break it down: Takashi Tezuka and Toshihiko Nakago both started at Nintendo around 1984, helping to shape everything from Balloon Fight to Super Mario Bros. These guys were part of the team that developed Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda – at the same time.
During the 10-page chat, a plethora of interesting tidbits are revealed about some of the game industry’s most influential Nintendo titles. Did you know that Zelda was initially designed as a dungeon game without an overworld? Or, how about the revelation that World 1-1 was created last, after the rest of the levels in Super Mario Bros., and designed implicitly to teach the game to non-gamers? The chat even gets into the lurid sleeping arrangements of Miyamota-san and Nakago-san while on business trips for ExciteBike (spoiler: it’s not that lurid).
Iwata Asks: 25 years with Miyamoto’s dev posse originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 15 Dec 2009 21:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Tags: balloon-fight, excite-bike, iwata-asks, nintendo-of-japan, satoru-iwata, shigeru-miyamoto, super-mario-bros, takashi-tezuka, the-legend-of-zelda, toshihiko-nakago, Wii / Nintendo
By Mister-X
Continue Reading Iwata Asks: 25 years with Miyamoto’s dev posse
November 23rd, 2009 at 09:00pm
Under DS
In the upcoming issue of Edge Magazine, Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto discusses a variety of topics with the UK gaming magazine. Develop Online got their hands on a copy of the magazine already, revealing a rather … revealing quote from the father of Donkey Kong. “Nintendo has become one of those companies that graduates from colleges and good universities really want to work for … I often say to [Nintendo head] Mr. Iwata: ‘If I was applying for a job here today, I, with my actual college degree, would probably not have been employed by Nintendo.”
Though he adds that he “might pick up on [applicants] and try to find out something really different within them which you can’t judge just by a college degree,” it worries us greatly that today’s equivalent of the man who helped to birth some of the game industry’s landmark franchises may end up unemployed or even dissuaded from game development altogether. All alone! Without a home! We imagine somewhat like a rolling stone!
… Our apologies. That was quite enough.
Miyamoto thinks his college degree wouldn’t get him a job at Nintendo today originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 23 Nov 2009 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Tags: college, college-degree, donkey-kong, jobs, miyamoto, nintendo, satoru-iwata, shigeru-miyamoto
By Mister-X
Continue Reading Miyamoto thinks his college degree wouldn’t get him a job at Nintendo today
November 2nd, 2009 at 04:00pm
Under Wii / Nintendo
Nintendo president
Satoru Iwata has gone on the record with the
Financial Times as being “interested” in the strategy Amazon has adopted for free internet access on its
Kindle eBook reader. “I’m interested because it’s a new business model in which the user doesn’t bear the communications cost,” he told the publication.
There’s no fee for accessing Amazon’s “WhisperNet” 3G network on Kindle, as the cost is built into the price of the device up-front. Taking a similar route with DS would mean the handheld would have a free, “always on” connection, something PSP doesn’t and mobile platforms such as the iPhone do, but at the cost of a cellular data plan. “Only people who can pay thousands of yen a month [in mobile phone subscriptions] can be iPhone customers. That doesn’t fit Nintendo customers because we make amusement products,” Iwata said.
Such a move would definitely expose more DSi (and DSi XL) buyers — especially those without access to home WiFi networks — to Nintendo’s DSi Store, but Iwata admits there would be mixed reactions among consumers, saying, “In reality, if we did this it would increase the cost of the hardware, and customers would complain about Nintendo putting prices up, but it is one option for the future.”
[Via Pocket Gamer]
Iwata voices interest in Kindle-like free 3G service for DS originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 02 Nov 2009 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Tags: 3g, kindle, nintendo, satoru-iwata, Wii / Nintendo
By Mister-X
Continue Reading Iwata voices interest in Kindle-like free 3G service for DS
August 10th, 2009 at 04:57pm
Under Wii / Nintendo
In the same investor Q&A in which president Satoru Iwata declared the ten-million-copy sales potential of Wii Fit Plus, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, and Wii Sports Resort and dismissed the idea of a price drop, Iwata also discussed the … less than guaranteed hit, the Wii Vitality Sensor. Iwata said that Nintendo “would like to deliver the actual product not too late in the year next year.”
As for software, the first game will have a “theme of relaxation, which is completely opposite from traditional ones, to enrich the users’ lives,” but he casually mentioned the idea of “measuring how horrified a player is in a horror title” as an example of the application of the thing.
One other interesting point: Iwata explained why Professor Layton’s European box art is so ugly: it was designed to look more like a Brain Age title in an effort to appeal to new, Brain Age-only gamers. Whatever Nintendo did, it worked!
Iwata: Vitality Sensor coming ‘not too late’ in 2010 originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 10 Aug 2009 15:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Tags: professor-layton, satoru-iwata, Wii / Nintendo, wii-vitality-sensor
By Mister-X
Continue Reading Iwata: Vitality Sensor coming ‘not too late’ in 2010
August 4th, 2009 at 10:36am
Under Wii / Nintendo
Following its quarterly financial report, Nintendo released an investor Q&A with president Satoru Iwata. It has yet to be released in English, but Andriasang translated a few key excerpts. Most notably, Iwata’s continued denial of any plans for a Wii price drop. “At present, we’re not thinking of doing anything with the price,” he said. Not that he’d announce it beforehand. Iwata didn’t mention it, but we suspect the black Wii will reinvigorate sales in Japan, even at the original price.
Iwata also admitted that last holiday’s Wii lineup, specifically Wii Music and Animal Crossing: City Folk, didn’t have the long-term sales Nintendo expects from its big titles. He has high hopes for this year’s big three games: Wii Sports Resort, Wii Fit Plus, and New Super Mario Bros. Wii. In fact, he expects all three of these to break ten million sold by March 2010, the end of Nintendo’s fiscal year.
Iwata continues to deny Wii price drop originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 04 Aug 2009 09:36:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Tags: iwata, new-super-mario-bros-wii, nintendo, price-cut, price-drop, satoru-iwata, Wii / Nintendo, wii-fit-plus, wii-sports-resort
By Mister-X
Continue Reading Iwata continues to deny Wii price drop
