Miyamoto Quote on Cultural Difference

September 9th, 2009

This year, research has become an increasingly more integral part of my writing procedure. Just today actually I researched my way out of purchasing Prince of Persia (2008). Good on me. I’ve also integrated my research habit into the posts themselves under the ‘Additional Readings’ heading. Backlogging too has become another significant part of my reading/writing habbit as of late. I’ve backlogged on Metal Gear comics and Retronauts posts. Now I’m doing a bit of both with Iwata Asks.

Iwata Asks is simply that, Mr Satoru Iwata, CEO of Nintendo, asking questions to developers within NCL’s Japanese offices. Such insight into the development of products such as Punch Out!!, Wii Sports Resort, Nintendo DSi and Super Mario Galaxy are valuable as they are obtuse to Nintendo’s prior stringency to divulging such insider information, rare exceptions omitted. These interviews are therefore akin to golden tickets into Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory.

I recommend that you take a read through sometime. The background stories are always interesting, of course, but the interviews too are very light-hearted, constant streams of laughter. For now though, I’ve plucked a quote from the Link’s Crossbow Training interview with Mr Miyamoto, creator of Mario, Zelda, Pikmin etc.

“If there is something simple which someone can find enjoyable, the same joy can be experienced by anyone on earth, I believe. That’s what I always have in mind when I am creating games. For example, when we were working on Wii Sports, Americans kept telling me that there was no way that games this simple would sell in the States. When Wii Sports finally went on sale though, the games included appeared to have even stronger appeal in the US than they did in Japan. When you see a phenomenon like that occur right in front of you, you start to see that there really isn’t any difference in what Asians or what Westerners find enjoyable.”