Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto has been quoted by Nintendo Power recently, saying that not everything needs to be 3D in the games industry. The creator of Mario and Zelda, two franchises that have had success in both dimensions, says:

“I don’t think everything needs to be 3D, or that just because we’re seeing more 2D games now, that everything’s going to shift back to 2D. Instead, I think that what’s going on is that people are realizing the benefits of a 3D game, and at the same time, remembering what the benefits of 2D games were.

When going 2D, you need the courage to not be so attached to visual appearance of the games and to really pursue the gameplay experience.”

I find myself worrying about Miyamoto’s recent obsession with fitness and self-help using the Wii, but it’s quotes like this that restore my faith in him. Think about all of the times a game has been put onto the DS (or PSP, for that matter) in 3D, where it could have been in 2D and played a hundred times better. Some games work in 3D, like Mario Kart, but honestly the best experiences I’ve had on those platforms are all 2D. Get the gameplay down, and I’m sold on the game. If it happens to look great, that’s a plus.

Oh, and just a note to DS and PSP developers: 2D looks so much better than 3D on those platforms. Think about it: the late-era SNES games looked crisp and sharp compared to the early PS1 and N64 3D polygonal messes.

Speaking about the Wii Remote recently, Miyamoto called it a “continuous evolution” and mentioned technological advancements and videogaming.

“It’s a continuous evolution. Not all the Wii software requires Motion Plus, so it is appropriate for us to position it as a peripheral. Also, it was not technically feasible for the technology to be realised with such a compact size. The fact we are now being able to sell Motion Plus at this price, at this size, is the result of technological advancements in the field of microelectro-mechanical systems, which took place after Wii launched.”

I know a few people that think the Wii MotionPlus is a total gimmick, but I love it. I love the idea that Nintendo is a taking a few core features and perfecting them as much as current technologies allow. The joker over at GoNintendo remarked that he’s ready for the Wii MotionPlusPlus in 2010, but while he was most likely being sarcastic, I am eagerly awaiting the Wii MotionPlusPlus.

Shigeru Miyamoto teams up with a trio of video game characters he created in an impressive short illustrated and animated by Newgrounds user, Awkward-Squid.

The concept behind the flash animation, titled “Legend of Miyamoto”, involves Mario, Link, and Donkey Kong helping their video game father make his way through their world. Squid says that the work was rushed a bit due to the fact it was being done as a university assignment, but I think it turned out great.

Check it out after the jump.

Make sure to head on over to Awkward-Squid’s user page and show him some love for this awesome piece of work.

Source: GoNintendo.com

CVG reports that the release date of the uber-casual Wii Music has been confirmed at November 14. This follows the US release date of October 20 by almost a month, so nothing new there. Not that it even matters, as the ‘casual’ market in the UK is huge and Wii Music will make more money for Nintendo in the first week than there actually is in the world. That’s right, Wii Music will outsell money itself. More news after the jump.

Nintendo Wii Fanboy also reports that the Japanese Wii Music site has updated with news of three minigames; “Narikiri Orchestra”, meaning ‘Becoming an Orchestra’, “Awasete Handbell”, meaning ‘Connect Handbells’, and a “Tone-matching minigame”. All have video, so feel free to watch in preparation of the glorious waggling to be had on October 20/November 14. Oh, and there’s an Iwata/Myamoto interview at Wii.com for those who can read Japanese.

Source: CVG and nintendowiifanboy.com

In a recent interview with the UK based Telegraph, Miyamoto stated that there are teams working on new Mario, Zelda, and Pikmin projects.

“They are all working on more Mario, Zelda and Pikmin projects … And they all work in close proximity to me, so I can keep a good eye on them.”

Not exactly sure who “all” is, because surely the entire company is not working on a new Mario title — who would be left to fine tune Wii Music? Ok, ok, I will let it go.

Miyamoto adds that traditional games are his area of expertise and offers insight as to how the company rotates staff internally to ensure that the “traditional” titles always have people working on them.

“Making these ‘traditional’ games is what I am best at. Because games of that nature take upwards of two or three years to make, we always have to keep the teams working on those projects going. At any given time, the team could be five to ten people, or it could be 50-plus. People are always switching in and out of those teams.”

I can’t help but feel like this is all damage control 101, but even if it is, it shows that the company does care to some extent about its hardcore gamer base. It would seem that they realize their E3 presentation didn’t have the impact they had hoped for.

All we can ask now is that they learn from their mistake, and keep the traditional teams closer to 50-plus, with five people working on the next Wii Music.

Source: Telegraph.co.uk

If you’ve been keeping up with Ripten’s E3 coverage, you may have come across the majority opinion on Wii Music…

Range: no rhythm, no tone, weren’t following each other, didn’t know if you were on pace

Chad: mass mayhem

Andrew: wasn’t working, sounded like a mess, all over the place, sort of hitting the buttons whenever he [Miyamoto] felt like it

Jon: could’ve given you all sticks and been like, “Have a great time…”

Those were quotes from the day 2 podcast following Nintendo’s press conference. Ever since that time, I’ve been meaning to introduce a second opinion. I’ve put in my demo time and come up with not complete and utter adulation, but at least a different understanding and a sense of where the fun lies. Hit the jump for these thoughts AND a Youtube of Miyamoto’s presentation.

First I’d like to tackle the negativity surrounding what you just saw in that video, by which I mean all the criticism of the end performance making no sense. Keep in mind that you’re hearing this from people who may or may not have much musical experience at all, and also, that it looks like a lot of fun (as I believe Andrew pointed out in the podcast).

The opening is, in fact, totally recognizable as the Super Mario Brothers theme. You have lead trumpet, second (harmony) trumpet, harmony marimba, and Miyamoto on the cowbell (or what sounded like a wood block most of the time.) Nothing was prerecorded (as opposed to what was speculated in the podcast), although they did have the drummer in a totally separate mode of the game, the drum kit, to demonstrate that aspect. I don’t think you’ll actually be able to use the kit like that to lay down a track in the Jam session, but there are plenty of other drum options.

I can tell this presentation was rehearsed, and I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. It’s a cool thing. They showed what a group of people can do who have organized themselves as a band. One of the other oft repeated criticisms I heard throughout the week, especially from Andrew (”Turkey in the m***f*** straw!”) was that the songs are all super old, which somehow means boring.

Knowing the song, though, really helps with the creativity part of this whole thing. You can’t improvise on a track you don’t know. The press conference showed that this band knew what they were doing (even if they aren’t actual musicians, or even Guitar Heroes) because they clearly marked off sections of the song as marimba and trumpet solos, and came back together for the finish. The second trumpet part, in particular, seemed very well thought out most of the time. The marimba and woodblock were a little less so, admittedly, but that doesn’t lead me to call this presentation a dud.

Now, onto my hands-on experience– and maybe this is a good time to get my less than enthusiastic opinion of the drum kit out of the way. I didn’t like it much at all. It’s a cool idea, especially using the balance board as foot pedals, but the way you have to hold different buttons or directions on the remote and nunchuck to get different drums just makes the whole thing prohibitively complicated. I don’t see the hardcore drummer set putting away Rock Band to take up this system, and it’s probably way too much for the casual audience to want to deal with. I could be wrong, since maybe the lessons work you up to it, but when I jumped on I just felt uncomfortably overwhelmed and wanted to get back to the jam session.

The first time I jammed I played lead Marimba on the show floor, to Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. I had so much fun with that, that I asked to play another song, and this time did lead trumpet on Yankee Doodle–I would’ve tried out harmony or percussion except, for whatever reason, I was having trouble getting the sensor bar to register me pointing in those directions.

Anyways, lead is probably the easiest and most fun (as you might expect) part to play. Carry the melody, but carry it however you like! The most important thing to know about Wii Music, I think, is that those little light up, square characters in the lower right corner of the screen are not telling you when to strum, shake, or press a button–they are simply a tempo guideline (which in the final version, will be customizable).

What happens is that you know how the melody goes, so you can just play on the beats (or off-beats) that make the melody happen, but if you choose to embellish, the game automatically assigns notes that make sense. I.e. I sounded like a total pro on Yankee Doodle, because it’s a song I know and I had an idea what sort of “fills” would work. In fact, playing a jam session is a lot like playing fills on Rock Band drums. You are left to your own devices, to a certain extent, but that is why it’s exciting. You can design the tracks how you like.

The challenge to this “game” is making something that sounds like a song and not just some noodling around. It will involve layering your tracks from the bottom up: coming up with a good percussion beat first, some harmony parts that nicely complement the melody, and then setting the lead over that. Not everyone can be the soloist all the time, or the song will sound like crap, so it’ll also involve some team-based planning and turn-taking.

I’m excited to get more time with Wii Music. When people say it’s more toy than game, they are probably right–in the same way that Electroplankton was more toy than game. From what I’ve seen it will be pretty fun, and I especially look forward to the feature that lets you collaborate with friends by sending songs so they can add or edit tracks. There is definitely a lot more potential here than some are giving it credit for.

Takao Sawano, who works at Nintendo with Shigeru Miyamoto, gave a great lecture on how Wii Fit came to be– it turns out it was “in the center of Miyamoto’s brain as a concept even before the console was released.”

Planted in the middle of Miyamoto’s Wii conceptual diagram (along with Wii Play and Wii Sports brainstorms) were ideas stemming from the fact that Miyamoto just enjoys measuring his weight and collecting the information. Of course, to make the product have wide appeal, there needed to be more to it, because who weighs themselves in the living room?

While the software team was taking care of that area, Sawano and his team were hard at work designing the peripheral that would become the Wii Balance Board. His idea to have two scales came from seeing Sumo wrestlers weighed that way, since one scale wouldn’t be enough to measure over 330 pounds. Not that we are all huge, but just that charting the weight shifting between feet could be an interesting way to proceed. He showed pictures of various prototypes, including raw shots of the strain gauges, of which there are four in the final product.

“Connecting the Wii Remote is a clumsy solution, don’t you think?” is how Nintendo President Satoru Iwata responded to their already heavily tweaked prototype when they first presented it. So much for cutting costs! Now the Balance Board is a self-contained wireless device. The decision to widen the board to account for a shoulder width stance during exercise also added more cost. Luckily it seems that since the game is selling so well in Japan (over 1.4 million copies since it was released last December) third parties may be interested in developing for the peripheral as well, so we’ll have more to do with our new toy. One such title already released in Japan by Bandai Namco in January is called Family Ski, which features a more fleshed out skiing game. Sawano rolled footage of a Japanese comedian having a great time while pulling off jumps and navigating moguls.

Wii Fit hits Europe April 25 and North America May 19. Might wanna start jogging around the block so the Miis don’t leave you in the dust on Wii Fit Island.