That's right. He in one way or another has said that more than once.

I just feel that's a pity. He could as well adress some niche and I would be thrilled to see that.

Yeah, but.... what makes you think he'd be any good at telling stories?

They did. Though the gameplay and evrything is still intact. It was just anthor excuse to have anthor idea for a world .

I think you misunderstood what I meant by "sacrifice".

It does not mean giving you a crappy storyline to give you the gameplay they wanted.
It means, the storyline was tweaked (sacrifice/changed) to compensate for the gameplay.

Whether that makes the story better or worse than originally planned is another story/thread.

I think Miyamoto decided whether his game is ready for release when he watches them play to see what kind of reaction the testers gave. I think this is mentioned in multiple interviews, base on my fuzzy memory.

He also have the power to just kill of the game from release even if it's done. Upending the tea table thingamajig.

It's a game.  Gameplay should always come first in a game.  Games that rely on the story get old quick and have no replay value.  If you want a story, read a book or watch a movie.

Mario never really has a story anyway so I don't think you have to worry about that.

I'm glad I'm not the only person who sees the sheer irony of complaining that a GAME has the most focus on GAMEPLAY instead of story. That's a wee bit like complaining that water is too wet, and should aspire to be more like sand and have a fine grainy texture.

Seriously. Why spend $50 to watch a video game when you can spend $5 to watch a real movie? It simply doesn't make sense.

NSMBWii has an exrtremely weak story (I mean, it's just save the princess like it's always been), but the gameplay is so great that it doesn't matter.

Battlefield doesn't have a story at all (at least the older ones didn't), but the gameplay is so epic it doesn't need one.

These two examples show how games should be. Now lets take CoD:MWR as an example. The single player campaign got old fast because the story was filled with cheese. I quit playing the single player campaign because I got tired of the story and the extended cut scenes. I quit playing the single player campaign of WaW all together solely because of the story.

There have only been two games that I've played where the story enhanced the game, and both of those came out in the 90s.

We can establish that since SMB3 was released. But like some of said, the gameplay is so bloody good that you wouldn't think about the story! XD

Princess Peach bakes Mario a cake. Mario comes over to eat the cake. Princess Peach is kidnapped by the evil Bowser and taken to his castle. Mario saves the princess.

This is the greatest story ever...