Miyamoto's Ideas for Metroid can be Found in Nintendo Land
The future of the series?
Not a bad starting point
As you no doubt saw over the weekend, Shigeru Miyamoto recently conducted an interview with Gamekult.com, during which he shared some views on Wii U and Nintendo's most iconic characters. Some additional translated comments now provide Miyamoto's views on the Metroid franchise, and he's suggested that Wii U launch title Nintendo Land could provide gamers with useful hints on the future direction of the series.
You know, the kind of ideas I have on Metroid are already reflected in the mini-game that is devoted to the series in Nintendo Land, Metroid Blast.
That doesn't make it so, of course, as the Metroid franchise has been in the hands of Retro Studios and Team Ninja in recent years, with other Nintendo figures apart from Miyamoto providing most first-party management. That said, documentaries for Metroid Prime Trilogy showed that Nintendo's most senior development figure played a major role in directing the early concepts for that series, such as prompting Retro Studios to include swappable scanning visors.
Would Nintendo Land's gameplay provide a good foundation for a solid Metroid experience? Quite possibly, and you can read our thoughts on Metroid Blast in our Nintendo Land hands on impressions. While the controls were fairly tricky in the context of this release, the third-person action and aiming on the ground was intuitive and fun, while the GamePad was put to good use when flying Samus' ship. The challenging flying controls didn't seem suitable in a competitive multiplayer environment, but as a tactical part of a Metroid title to, for example, bomb space pirate outposts, it could potentially work very well.
Of course, there's not long to wait before millions of gamers can try Metroid Blast for themselves, so its merits as a foundation for a future Metroid title will no doubt come under full scrutiny.
http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2012/11/miyamotos_ideas_for_metroid_can_be_found_in_nintendo_land
Miyamoto Working to Encourage More Wii U Third-Party Developers
Selling the concept
"I am trying to meet with the game developers individually"
One of the big challenges facing Nintendo and its Wii U system is to encourage more third-party developers to commit to major projects on the system. While Wii had a diverse library — perhaps more so than many think — it arguably lacked a lot of big-hitting titles from third-parties that utilised the system and achieved success. While some notable exclusives in Wii U's launch window bode well, Nintendo will clearly want to keep that momentum going for years to come.
As part of his evolving role, perhaps away from leading development teams himself, Shigeru Miyamoto seems to have been tasked with recruiting more development studios to the Wii U cause. In an interview with IGN, the father of Mario explained that he's working to show developers the creative opportunities of Wii U, and dispel myths that only Nintendo can produce the best games on its systems.
I am trying to meet with the game developers individually for this matter. The real subject is whether I’ll be able to - we’ll be able to - convince developers inside of the licensing publishers to be excited about the new features of the Wii U, so much so that they’ll be enthused towards making brand new entertainment that I couldn't come up with myself.
When it comes to technologies and techniques and skills necessary for working on Wii U, [and] what we can provide, I can count on them that they already have that. They know how to do that. They are always skilful, and actually they must have some different know-how from what we have. There might be some misunderstanding - as if Nintendo alone had some special know-how, and because Nintendo has not shared those unique, secret protocols with other, third-party publishers have not been able to create the exciting, unique gameplay on Nintendo hardware. But that was not the case.“
The fact of the matter is that most third-party licensees from a business point of view, had to create multi-platform titles – and because Nintendo has been trying to create very unique hardware, oftentimes it was not considered the first choice for them to work on multi-platform software. So it’s the entire company decision-making process that is hindering developer’s ability from making unique titles on Wii U hardware. Once again, my job as one of the developers is meet with the individual people and convince that they’ll be able to create brand new entertainment that they really wish to realise. My job is to try to assist them in that fashion.
I do not think that providing any special technologies, know how or skills would be able to change the situation, because I understand that most third-party developers already have those things.
Encouraging major publishers to develop software that makes the most of Wii U — not just multi-platform ports — will likely be one of many important factors that determine the console's success. Ubisoft in particular is a strong presence in the launch window, while Platinum Games will eventually bring Bayonetta 2 exclusively to the system.
What do you think of Shigeru Miyamoto's comments, and do you think Nintendo will be able to coax high-quality software from third-parties? Let us know in the comments below.
The Legend of Zelda's Link Was Inspired By Walt Disney's Peter Pan
From one green hero to another
Clad in green garments, sporting a pointy hat and defined by elf-like ears, you'd think we were talking about Hyrule's hero - Link. Wrong. We have Peter Pan in mind, the protagonist from one of Walt Disney's most famous animated productions, who became an inspiration for the The Legend of Zelda's main character.
In an interview with French site Game Kult, Shigeru Miyamoto was asked about the origin of Link. Miyamoto explained that they wanted to make the character recognizable, so as a result, sprite designer Takashi Tezuka turned to Disney when putting together the design for Link. (We're guessing Tinkerbell is Navi but slightly less annoying, right?)
Miyamoto also gave some insight into the origin of the character's unique name. When the team began designing the first The Legend of Zelda game, the Triforce fragments were supposed to be electronic chips. The series was planned to take place in both the past and future, and the hero was the "link" in the middle - hence the name.
In that same interview, Miyamoto discussed how baffled he is that anyone would want a new F-Zero game - something which has already stirred up quite a bit of debate on this very site.
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