People are noticing videogames again, says Miyamoto

In an interview with Dean Takahashi in the Mercury News, Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto reflects upon the Wii's influence.

"...I do get the distinct feeling that because of the Wii, people all over the world are finally taking notice of videogames again, when they havenât for a while," he said.

Discussing the upcoming Wii Fit game, Miyamoto noted that it was hard work to create even a seemingly simple game.

"While the games themselves appear very simple, the overall system is quite complex. You have so many elements you have to balance," he said.

"We had to design and create the Wii Balance Board hardware, we have to consider the timing of our software completion, the timing of the manufacturing of the Wii Balance Board. There are a lot of factors you have to merge and balance to make everything come together in one package at the end.

"To me, balancing and juggling all of those elements is quite a bit more fun compared to sitting down and programming."

Miyamoto did not appear worried that releasing a peripheral such as the Zapper can potentially lead to more violent games.

"I think we have seen how violence has been used in games so far without a Wii Zapper to encourage that," Miyamoto explained. "I think that will happen either way. The concept behind the Wii is to provide the most intuitive interface we can for the consumer."

"The most intuitive interface for the shooting game is to have something like the Wii Zapper."

When asked why we are seeing Wii games based on existing characters, rather than the introduction of new characters, Miyamoto replied that he didn't think his job is to create new characters as much as it is to create new experiences.

"Recently, Wii Fit is creating the concept and the idea and the feeling behind the game. That has been one of my new creations," Miyamoto said. "For characters, we came up with the concept of the Miis and that allows people to come up with their own characters."

Even so, Miyamoto hinted at new Wii franchises.

"Maybe next year sometime, we may have new characters in the same way we came up with Pikmin when we introduced the GameCube," he said.