Nindori: 10 years of Famicom and Super Famicom. 10 years of N64 and GC. And now another ten years is starting with Wii?
Miyamoto: Yes, we’re starting from here.
N: Looking at the titles you’ve announced so far, it already seems like you’ll be releasing games at a faster pace than the N64 and GC.
M: That’s because the machine is based on GC. Dev tools are of course being upgraded, but GC code will basically run as is. Because of that, I’m also thinking I can remake some of my GC games for Wii, making use of the Wiimote.
N: So you think games will experience a rebirth thanks to the Wiimote…
M: Yes. Of course you can wander into a second hand shop and buy a lot of these games still, so I don’t think we can release these Wiimakes at full price. Since a lot of the development cost has already been accounted for, we’ll be able to release these at a much more affordable price. And if others also take advantage of this and release Wiimakes, there’s a high possibility of a lot of software from third parties also.
N: So, there’s a possibility of Nintendo doing this?
M: Yes, I strongly believe there is. For this reason, the next Zelda will be released for both Wii and GC simultaneously. It’s quite an interesting experiment.
N: Ah, I see.
M: Also, when we were working on it, some of the staff were saying “Since the Wii has more power than the GC, let’s polish the graphics up a bit too”, but Zelda’s fans aren’t expecting polish, they’re expecting a fun and exciting game, so I said it is better if we make it fun both on Wii and GC. And recently it’s been established that “Wii is not a machine that tries to deliver next-gen graphics”. Of course, since there are still games that demand high quality graphics, there will be separate paths of development depending on the software.
