Shigeru Miyamoto discusses Wii Fit, Super Mario Galaxy and Wii Music
Wired has bagged a lengthy interview with Shigeru Miyamoto, Nintendo’s resident genius and games design guru. It’s an interesting read, and they touch on a range of topics, including Wii Fit, Super Mario Galaxy, and another new project called Wii Music.
The latter sounds like Nintendo have woken up to the popularity of games like Guitar Hero, and they’re keen to capitalise on it. Early press events for the Wii console featured a demo where you conducted an orchestra, with the Wii-mote used as a baton. It didn’t really float my boat, but there was plenty of scope to improve and refine the idea, and I’m guessing that Wii Music will be built along similar lines.
To my ears, however, the best part of the interview is Miyamoto’s thoughts on the violence and video games debate. It’s a compellingly simple argument, reprinted in full after the jump.
“Up until now, the biggest question in society about video games has been what to do about violent games. But it’s almost like society in general considers video games to be something of a nuisance, that they want to toss into the garbage can. And so really what we feel is that rather than answering the question of what to do about violence in video games, we can, through the games that we create, once again make video games a topic of popular discussion and popular culture, then gradually you’re going to see society come to understand video games better and understand what they’re all about. At that point, once that understanding is there, people will become able to address their concerns about violent video games from a position of understanding rather than a position of being on the outside looking in.”
You tell ‘em, Shiggy! We’re behind you one hundred and ten percent! The only way the industry can solve this particular problem is to embrace the mainstream, it’s as simple as that. Once the mainstream understand what gaming’s all about, they’ll be less inclined to accuse gamers of being sociopathic freaks.
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