Shigeru Miyamoto talks about the next 3D Mario, upcoming spin-offs
Back in July, Eurogamer had the opportunity to hold an interview with Shigeru Miyamoto himself, in which various topics were tackled. It’s during that very interview that the famous creator confirmed that a fourth entry in the Pikmin was currently in development, and “very close to completion” (though we don’t know for which platform yet).
During that interview, Shigeru Miyamoto also talked about the “opportunity” for a new 3D Mario in the vein of Super Mario Galaxy, as Nintendo’s “hardware technology gets better and advances”. For Miyamoto, there is always discussions about making a new 3D Mario, but he also mentions some of the problems encountered with previous 3D Mario titles.
For example, with Super Mario 64, there was quite a lot of feedback about motion sickness with 3D, or Nintendo making the game too difficult. It’s for that reason that Nintendo went back to its root with the New Super Mario Bros. series, that just about anyone can play.
They also tried to find a middle ground between the 3D worlds of the Super Mario Galaxy games and the 2D platformer action of New Super Mario Bros.., and that’s exactly how Super Mario 3D Land and Super Mario Land 3D World were born.
But later in the interview, Shigeru Miyamoto explained that he and Yoshiaki Koizumi (from EAD Tokyo) are “always looking to challenge and do another 3D action title”. But there’s a problem: Nintendo simply can’t make so many games at once. But all hope is not lost: Miyamoto believes that as technology progresses, there will be “plenty of opportunity for both options” (2D and 3D Mario games).
In other words: a new 3D Mario game is definitely possible, but it won’t be on Wii U. Unfortunately, Shigeru Miyamoto didn’t really explain what the extra power of a new console would be needed for:
“Wii U’s definitely good enough in terms of hardware performance, it is more the workload of the team. If you look at Star Fox Zero, the TV and GamePad are both rendered in 60 frames, so in total that’s 120 frames. It’s really just a matter of the CPU speed at this point.”
Miyamoto then mentions Splatoon, with which many players have gotten and are getting used to controlling a 3D camera, which should definitely help the next 3DS Mario reach a wider audience than the previous ones.
Then, Shigeru Miyamoto talked about the upcoming spin-offs, and more specifically Metroid Prime: Federation Force: he’s quite aware that it “wasn’t exactly what fans expected.” As for Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer, he explains that it provides a new type of gameplay in a familiar series. It’s the result of the Nintendo team working with “the hardware [they] have”.
He then goes on to talk about the amiibo cards, Mario Maker and its level editor, as well as the new Metroid and Zelda games, which are all examples of games provided new gameplay in familiar franchises, and of Nintendo working with the hardware they have.
Super Mario Maker (Wii U) comes out on September 10th in Japan, and September 11th in Europe and North America.
Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer (3DS) and the first series of Animal Crossing amiibo cards come out on September 25th in North America, and October 2nd in Europe.
Source: Eurogamer
