By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close

Forums - Nintendo Discussion - Shigeru Miyamoto's crazy take on side-scrolling 2D Mario

S.Peelman said:

Actually I read this as them starting out wanting to make an “accessible” 3D Mario, but then wound up going with 2D Mario again because that’s by nature more accessible, not that “2D Mario is accessible 3D Mario”. Not mentioned though is later on they got another idea to make 3D Mario more accessible with making 3D Land and World.

Exactly, that's pretty much what I read as well. And both Land and World are pretty much the definition of accessible.



Around the Network

Mario 3D has put up massive sales numbers on the Switch too, far higher than any previous 3D Marios, so they probably also feel like 3D Mario is more accessible now and/or the audience has grown to the point where they have been raised on 3D Mario and it's not as big of a deal.

Mario Odyssey has sold 22 million copies and continues to sell, that's 2D Mario range numbers especially because Odyssey really has not been bundled heavily with the Switch at all.

Mario 3D All-Stars selling like 10 million copies in a very limited time is pretty crazy too, then you have Mario 3D World selling 7.5 million copies in just a few months. There isn't as much of an aversion to 3D platformers anymore it doesn't look like, these are big numbers. 

Probably in part why Kirby is finally getting a open world 3D platformer now too. 

I wouldn't mind a new 2D Mario but they really need to change some things, the "New" series is dated and bland. 

Last edited by Soundwave - on 11 November 2021

RolStoppable said:
farlaff said:

I've read all the text and I wonder if that is not a mistranslation, in which he meant we made another Mario game which is New Super Wii, and it's very accessible blah blah blah. I don't really think he believes New SM Wii, or any other NSMB for that matter, to be a 3D game. Heck, that would be reason for a direct intervention in a sanatorium coming from the guy that practically showed the world how to make a proper 3D platformer after doing 2D ones with the success we all know about.

The translation was done by Nintendo themselves and they tend to be very careful with this kind of document, so there's no good reason to believe in a potential mistranslation.

I see. Welp, I don't know how to feel if the translation is completely accurate (and that is something we might never know), but the man has credit.



Soundwave said:

Mario 3D has put up massive sales numbers on the Switch too, far higher than any previous 3D Marios, so they probably also feel like 3D Mario is more accessible now and/or the audience has grown to the point where they have been raised on 3D Mario and it's not as big of a deal.

Mario Odyssey has sold 22 million copies and continues to sell, that's 2D Mario range numbers especially because Odyssey really has not been bundled heavily with the Switch at all.

Mario 3D All-Stars selling like 10 million copies in a very limited time is pretty crazy too, then you have Mario 3D World selling 7.5 million copies in just a few months. There isn't as much of an aversion to 3D platformers anymore it doesn't look like, these are big numbers. 

Probably in part why Kirby is finally getting a open world 3D platformer now too. 

I wouldn't mind a new 2D Mario but they really need to change some things, the "New" series is dated and bland. 

They need to man up, grow a pair and make New Old Super Mario Cousins.



Research shows Video games  help make you smarter, so why am I an idiot

padib said:
RolStoppable said:

The Zelda IP was steered in the right direction by Nintendo's businessmen because Zelda is the most expensive game to make and Skyward Sword's sales were unacceptable. Compare that to 2D Mario which is a mid-budget game at best and still sells north of 10m+. The requirement for business to really step in isn't there, that's why 2D Mario's fate is tied to Nintendo's creative side at the moment. The reason why I brought up Zelda is because Miyamoto put someone in charge who thinks like him. It's much the same for Mario where I've never heard Koizumi say anything about interest in making a 2D Mario game. That's why the drought isn't going to end with Miyamoto. One can only hope that the creative people in charge change their mind.

If I had a video game business, I wouldn't be upset if someone recommended me to make a sequel to a highly successful IP because there's a lot of business sense to it. As for Nintendo being allowed to do whatever they want, this brings us back to what I've said in the previous paragraph; Nintendo's artists are only allowed to do that as long as the business results follow, otherwise Nintendo's business side steps in and tells them to make games the fans want, not the games they want to make.

As far as I know, when Nintendo's business is doing well, Nintendo's business gives its inhouse teams a bunch of options for games to make and the teams can pick what they are most interested in. That's what Furukawa alluded to a couple of years ago. Problem is that no team will pick 2D Mario when none of the directors and producers are interested in it. The situation is like that because Miyamoto had a lot of say when it comes to who got promoted to higher positions. So the next 2D Mario isn't going to be ordered to be made unless Nintendo's business goes really south and Nintendo has to do everything they can to get back on track, but that's not going to happen anytime soon.

I'll reason it with you using your logic.

The business stepped in for Zelda because it's the most expensive to make. While you have no proof on this business decisions rule, I'll follow your logic for you.

If the business has money concerns for Zelda due to expenses, then they also have concerns for 2D Mario due to lost opportunity, using again your logic that 2D Mario is a sure seller (which in relative terms it right now isn't, but let's roll with it). So if it's a sure seller, then not making one requires business to step in according to your logic of keeping an eye on the bottom line (fyi Kimishima worked at Sanwa bank for 27 years then helmed Nintendo and then groomed Furukawa, check the Wikipedia page on him). 

Thus there is good news for you that if there is serious lost opportunity with this type of release, it will happen whether Miyamoto wants it or not.

Hopefully this puts you back in a good mood about it and you can forget this bs quite from Miyamoto.

By the way, I'll tell you a secret. They made NSMB Wii to cash in on NSMB DS. Nothing to do with accessibility of controls but to tap into the casual market. And they are now following the 3D Mario direction because they are following the money. And if they think they can squeeze money out of 2D Mario (if your view on its sales strength are also compelling for Nintendo's businessmen), then they will pursue it. Don't let the PR spin fool you. Remember this is an investor's meeting so some things are coded.

EDIT: As a matter of fact, all this quote tells us is that Nintendo finally has faith in the sales strength of 3D Mario after the success of some of its more expansive 3D games like Odyssey and BotW. So this is really just good news for 3D Mario fans and is just confusion for 2D Mario fans but inconsequential in the end. I can predict with near certainty that 2D Mario will be somehow revived in the next 4-6 years. With everything I outlined above, compounded with left-field releases like Link's Awakening remake and Metroid Dread, I don't see why Nintendo wouldn't follow this trend on such a promising release as 2D Mario. Again don't sweat Miyamoto, he's just PRing and doesn't have the authority to affect that opportunity being pursued. He just follows orders now.

I'm sure there probably will be another 2D Mario at some point, but yeah I think the points are valid overall. To be more specific, 2021 is just a different time from even 2006 ... whereas the Wii/DS were kinda trying to mine NES-era nostalgia and simplify the gaming process, the Switch is a different kind of system. The 20-30 year olds that drive the Switch market have grown up with 3D gaming all their lives, they don't get scared away by 3D games or 3D cameras, it's a normal thing for them. 

I think Nintendo is less concerned these days with everything having to be stripped down to the lowest common denominator and simplified overly so. Their games are still accessible just as they were on the SNES or N64 or GCN, but I think they're kinda stopping the whole "oh no, we can't make a 3D Mario or Zelda because it may be too complex for Wii Sports mom, or everything must revolve around this type of consumer". That line of thinking I think they've let go of. 

Their mobile games are tailored for people who simply cannot play games that involve more than 2 buttons, but if you want to play on a Nintendo Switch ... you need to understand how to use not only one analog stick but in many cases two of them, four face buttons, and four shoulder buttons and how to navigate 3D space or there's not a lot for you to play. The number of touch only or motion only games made by Nintendo are also basically very small. 

A new 2D Mario isn't going to be as big news as NSMB was in 2006 either. NSMBU is still basically a new game to people who didn't own a Wii U (which is basically 94% of the Switch audience) and that just released in 2019, so for most people this is not like 15 year gap and I think Nintendo also feels the same way. Also Mario 3D World is basically a "3D version of a 2D Mario" as well and again like it only sold 5.8 million copies on Wii U, meaning that there's a ton of Switch users for whom that's a new game entirely. 

But then you also have standard Mario 3D games doing incredible numbers on the Switch also ... 22 million for Mario Odyssey and almost 10 million copies of Mario 3D All-Stars which only got a few months to sell (almost definitely this would have hit 14-15 million otherwise). 



Around the Network
RolStoppable said:

In the most recent Q&A session with investors, there was one interesting question: Q6.

https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2021/211105_2e.pdf

Also, what are your thoughts on the differences between 3D Mario and side-scrolling 2D Mario in game software?

As for the difference between 2D Mario and 3D Mario, let me explain by describing the background for the development of the Wii game New Super Mario Bros. Wii, which was released in 2009. At the time, it felt like each time we created a new installment in the Super Mario series — which by then had expanded into 3D — it became more complicated. After the release of Super Mario Galaxy in 2007, the goal was to develop a more accessible 3D Super Mario game, and the result was New Super Mario Bros. Wii, a basic side-scrolling Super Mario game that even new players could easily play. That later led to the release of the even simpler
Super Mario Run game (a mobile application released in 2016.) When we develop software, we strive to incorporate new elements, but at the same time we want to make it easy for even firsttime players to have fun. Recently, people of all generations have been enjoying the 3D Mario game Super Mario Odyssey (released in 2017,) so for 3D Mario going forward, we want to try expanding further in new ways. 

...

It isn't news that Shigeru Miyamoto is against Nintendo making 2D Mario games and that's why it isn't surprising that already nine years have passed since Nintendo's last game (New Super Mario Bros. U). His explanation above points in the direction of this drought not coming to an end anytime soon, because apparently NSMB Wii is now a more accessible 3D Mario game and not what it actually is, something entirely different. With this make-believe explanation where every Super Mario game belongs to the same line, 2D Mario has become obsolete as Miyamoto's conclusion sees Nintendo only making 3D Mario going forward.

Any reasonable person would have said that the differences between 3D Mario and side-scrolling 2D Mario are so pronounced that it's necessary for Nintendo to make both types of games. It has been less than a week ago that Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers put out the stunner "I am a man of science" while having received homeopathic treatment to get immunized against the coronavirus. That was already a very high level of stupid, but Shigeru Miyamoto managed to top it. What makes Miyamoto's delusion so much worse is that it will take many years until it is resolved whereas Rodgers merely misses a game or two for his team due to testing positive for COVID-19.

Shigeru Miyamoto is a jackass.

2D platformers are essential games for Mario franchise, just like Mario Kart is the best 3D Mario game, even countless people like me that are neither Mario nor Ninty fans like them. This quirky and stubborn Miyamoto idiosyncrasy against 2D seems to confirm what I always thought, that only Nintendo itself can kill a successful Nintendo product.



Stwike him, Centuwion. Stwike him vewy wuffly! (Pontius Pilate, "Life of Brian")
A fart without stink is like a sky without stars.
TGS, Third Grade Shooter: brand new genre invented by Kevin Butler exclusively for Natal WiiToo Kinect. PEW! PEW-PEW-PEW! 
 


RolStoppable said:
AllfatherStarr said:

But what exactly do you want out of Nintendo? good business decisions or good games ? Because as a consumer I would rather they spend money on a new DKC game than a new 2D Mario, although there is no way in hell their sales will be even remotely similar. 

Good business and good games aren't mutually exclusive at all. Likewise, a new 2D Mario game being great isn't remotely something unthinkable or unrealistic.

A typical strawman argument by people who don't want another 2D Mario is to paint those who want a new 2D Mario as asking for another New Super Mario Bros. retread. A) But what is actually being asked for is a new Super Mario Bros. game made with AAA treatment.

GoOnKid said:

I have noe idea why everyone likes to criticize him so much. And at this point, I'm too afraid to ask.

B) It wasn't that long ago that you made a thread about David Jaffe's incredible stupidity. No developer should be above criticism, especially if they say or do something very stupid.

C) 2D Mario is among Nintendo's biggest IPs and it's approaching a full decade without a new game. This isn't the first time this has happened either. D) It's no secret that Miyamoto dislikes 2D Mario and would rather have Nintendo only make 3D Mario games. The way he conflates 2D Mario and 3D Mario games in his answer to investors makes it very likely there's no new 2D Mario game in the works nor planned to be made anytime soon.

What's so damning about Miyamoto's attitude is that it has influenced other developers inside Nintendo too, E) plus when he used to be general producer he promoted the people who he considered to be the best fit for these jobs. While Eiji Aonuma has nothing to do with Mario, he should have no business with Zelda. But he was Miyamoto's chosen guy to take over and F) it didn't do the Zelda IP much good. It's only when Nintendo's business intervenes and dictates that the things Aonuma wants in Zelda shouldn't go in there and the focus should be on things that make Zelda sell.

With 2D Mario it's a similar situation: The people who want to make a new game aren't in the positions to get it made and when Miyamoto talks about 2D Mario like he does in this answer to investors, it's further shutting down any such possibility. G)

A) I would love to know how you'd imagine such a game to look and feel like. No sarcasm, I really would like to know.

B) Yes I know that, but I'd argue that these are very different topics. Jaffe was just desperately looking for attention, but Miyamoto merely explains why and how he created the NSMB series. His goal was to make the game more accessible and he succeeded. At the same time, we can see that Super Mario Odyssey also made a lot of changes to make the game more accessible, and this approach succeeded as well. I believe that basically all he said was that there is more than just one way to make Mario games more accessible, and that Nintendo tries yet another approach for their next instalment.

By the way, he always had this way of thinking that 2D and 3D Mario was basically the same. https://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/#/wii/nsmb/0/4

His explanation is that both styles use 3D polygon models so they're both 3D games, camera angles don't seem to bother him pretty much. Now I won't defend this as even I can see how much of a stretch this is, but oh well. It might be a very unusual explanation, but it's still a much better one than Jaffe's 'I'm too dumb to shoot diagonally even though I've already done it before, so this game gets a 3/10 and sucks.' Also, as dumb as Miyamotot's explanaton is, I think we're not scratching your main concern here.

C) Yes, I agree. It is a hot thing.

D) Very debatable. He and Tezuka created the NSMB series in the first place. Rol, I love you, but I think you're reaching pretty hard on this one.

E) Yes, that's what all supervisors/seniors/executives do. They put people around them that share their mindset. This is nothing unusal.

F) Also very debatable, the Aonuma Zeldas are amazing. Maybe we have differing tastes. But then again, how do you even know which contents were Aonuma's ideas and which were not? Perhaps I don't fully understand your point here.

G) If the business has such a high power to demand which games will and which games will not be made, then his take on the fate of 2D Mario is not decisive, is it? Perhaps I don't fully understand this statement of yours, too. In any case, I really can't imagine that he has any grudges against the 2D series and I don't think that he would prevent another game. Like padib already said earlier, he's busy with other things anyway. But, time will tell, we'll see.

Last edited by GoOnKid - on 12 November 2021

JackHandy said:
Jumpin said:

Shitting on artists is what we do best in the west…and we’re good at it, we even drove Vincent van Gogh to suicide. Then did the other stereotypically dick move: turning around to praise him as arguably the greatest artistic painter of all time AFTER we drove him to take his own life.

At the risk of sounding callus here, you can't make someone kill themselves. That's a cop out. If someone is suicidal, they're suicidal and they need to get help and go on some heavy duty mood stabilizers and get away from the toxicity that's making them feel so bad. I know we're in a culture now where personal accountability is almost a dirty phrase, but that doesn't make it any less true. You are responsible for your disposition in this life, not anyone else. Doesn't matter what's being said about you, you still have the power to get away from it, make a positive change and get the help you need. No one has has that power over you. And anyone who suggests otherwise is misinformed. 

Yeah, I’m sure Vincent van Gogh could have easily just gone to a medical practitioner to get some Prozac. :D



I describe myself as a little dose of toxic masculinity.

Jumpin said:
JackHandy said:

At the risk of sounding callus here, you can't make someone kill themselves. That's a cop out. If someone is suicidal, they're suicidal and they need to get help and go on some heavy duty mood stabilizers and get away from the toxicity that's making them feel so bad. I know we're in a culture now where personal accountability is almost a dirty phrase, but that doesn't make it any less true. You are responsible for your disposition in this life, not anyone else. Doesn't matter what's being said about you, you still have the power to get away from it, make a positive change and get the help you need. No one has has that power over you. And anyone who suggests otherwise is misinformed. 

Yeah, I’m sure Vincent van Gogh could have easily just gone to a medical practitioner to get some Prozac. :D

Very true, although it's still nobody else's fault. When you're suffering from the things he suffered from (mental illness, malnutrition, insomnia and alcoholism among others), it's just a recipe for disaster. The man was very unwell.

Last edited by JackHandy - on 12 November 2021

A) Hand-drawn graphics instead of 3D models; think of Wario Land: The Shake Dimension, but with more detail and in higher resolution. Music doesn't need to be explained, because you know that there's a world of difference between the NSMB games and the efforts Nintendo made for 3D Mario games. The AAA treatment naturally means a big boost in production values over the NSMB games.

B) You are giving Miyamoto way too much credit. For one, the timeline doesn't add up. NSMB for the DS released in mid-2006, so about 1.5 years before Super Mario Galaxy in late 2007. NSMB Wii was not an attempt at creating a more accessible 3D Mario game when the same flawed logic would already apply to NSMB on the DS as this more accessible 3D Mario game. And two, you recognize how indefensible it is to call a game 3D Mario based on nothing more than 3D models being used.

D) Don't forget that NSMB was created at a time when Nintendo had run its home console business into trouble and Sony was looking to threaten Nintendo's handheld business too. The whole company had to make a conscious effort to do the things again that made Nintendo popular in the first place.

E) It isn't unusual, but it's a bad thing in the long run. Someone who surrounds himself with yes-men becomes prone to live in a bubble and increasingly disconnected from reality.

F) Let me explain. Aonuma's first Zelda game was The Wind Waker which featured a controversial artstyle; TWW may be fondly remembered today, but it didn't do Nintendo's business good when it released. The reaction of Nintendo's business side was to take cues from Ocarina of Time which resulted in Twilight Princess with a darker artstyle and mood. With Zelda's selling power restored, Aonuma had more freedom again which not only brought us a sequel to The Wind Waker (Phantom Hourglass), but the content-wise highly questionable Spirit Tracks where trains were a major theme despite not being a good fit for the Zelda universe.

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2009/12/childrens_book_was_inspiration_for_spirit_tracks

Skyward Sword was more of a different take on The Wind Waker than another Twilight Princess. The wide ocean was replaced by a similarly empty sky and there was the idea to turn combat into puzzles. Which it kind of is due to commonly necessitating certain angles to hit enemies with the sword at all. Much of this direction stems from Aonuma not being any good in action games, hence why he doesn't like the original Zelda games and would rather have the player solve more puzzles (this is apparent from interviews and speeches at the Games Developers Conference). This also showed in A Link Between Worlds which is supposed to be a lot like A Link to the Past, but the actual dungeon content is light on enemies; this is why ALBW's hard mode quadruples damage.

After the sales disappointment of Skyward Sword, the following home console Zelda must have been tough for Aonuma. Because this time Nintendo didn't want to go back to Ocarina of Time, but the true origins of the Zelda series. A prototype was built in 8-bit to test the ideas that were going to go into Breath of the Wild. A Zelda game with little to no story-telling, a lot of exploration and combat, and a lot of player freedom is basically the opposite of what Skyward Sword was.

In all of what I am saying here, it's not about personal enjoyment of entries in the Zelda series, it's about the ramifications for Nintendo's business, so the individual games' sales as well as the impact or lack thereof on hardware sales, because as Nintendo's most expensive series it absolutely has to sell hardware to justify the resources that get poured into it. Less Aonuma influence consistently means more sales.

G) I'll copy-paste from another post of mine in this thread:

"As far as I know, when Nintendo's business is doing well, Nintendo's business gives its inhouse teams a bunch of options for games to make and the teams can pick what they are most interested in. That's what Furukawa alluded to a couple of years ago. Problem is that no team will pick 2D Mario when none of the directors and producers are interested in it. The situation is like that because Miyamoto had a lot of say when it comes to who got promoted to higher positions. So the next 2D Mario isn't going to be ordered to be made unless Nintendo's business goes really south and Nintendo has to do everything they can to get back on track, but that's not going to happen anytime soon."

So the business has the power, but it chooses when to use that power. Right now is not a time where the business would enforce its full power because Nintendo is raking in huge profits from its console. The personal happiness of developers is also a consideration, as in, getting to choose which games they would rather want to develop. Happy employees create better products, that's the thinking. This happiness can be threatened by low hardware sales, because that creates a situation of a lot of pressure on all developers to deliver a really big hit game at all times. So during the dire times Nintendo went through as a business, forcing certain games on developers served the happiness of developers too, because a return to a well-run business allows for more relaxed work again.

In closing, I hope the points make sense because I've been distracted a lot while writing this and been sitting way too long for my liking at this one post.

Thank you, that certainly made everything a lot clearer. So, we can agree that Miyamoto's statement doesn't mean that there won't be a new 2D Mario soon because he is not in the power to decide that. However, we can also agree that there still won't be a new 2D Mario game soon because there's no need for one right now.

Concerning Skyward Sword, I would like to respond that the game still managed to sell nearly four million units on the Wii alone. We know that Breath of the Wild had the biggest budget of any Nintendo game so far and only needed two million units to break even. I guess it's reasonable to think that Skyward Sword's budget must have been significantly lower and therefore returned a nice profit. Maybe there is an offcial statement somewhere in which Nintendo speaks of a dissapointment, I don't know, and I didn't check. Then again, we will want to consider the Wi's huge install base and then things look a bit different again. Anyway, I certainly would not call these numbers a dissapointment, honestly, but I'm merely a forum dweller.

Also, as a quick addendum, Phantom Hourglass sold 5m, which is the highest number for any handheld Zelda. Not too shabby if you ask me.

Also, as another addendum, Aonuma might not be the best action gamer but I think it's still good enough. Wikipedia states that Aonuma was the director of Twilight Princess and that is pretty action packed, I guess. Wind Waker and Skyward Sword were not directed by him. Now I think it's exhausting to discuss how much influence the producer and the director have had on each game because we would barely be able to know for sure, but it's just something that I find worth noting.