In the 4th series of interviews with the Wii development team (see the last interview here), they discuss Wii Sports.
We get to take a look behind the scenes of developing one of Nintendo’s most important launch titles. Wii Sports was the first game since the Super Nintendo’s Super Mario World to come packed in with a Nintendo system, and as such it was crucial for Nintendo to get the game right.
They discuss how Nintendo came up with the idea, and how it was a direct result of the shape of the Wiimote, how it was Shiggy’s (Shigeru Miyamoto) idea to put all the game’s together to form “Wii Sports” and how he wrote it down on a piece of paper (one of the developer’s commented, “That must be what the inside of Shiggy’s head looks like!”) and how Wii Sports wasn’t initially designed to feature Mii’s, but rather they were developed separately and later brought together.
It’s fun to hear how light-hearted they are, they laugh and joke with each other particularly about how fun of a job they have! Look forward to the second volume of the Wii Sports interviews tomorrow.
Part 1 – A Truly Ground-breaking Collection of Games
Iwata – The developers of Wii Sports have joined me to kick off our series of interviews on Wii software. So without further ado, I would like each of you to introduce yourself, beginning with Eguchi-san. Please also explain in layman’s terms what you have worked on up to now.
Eguchi – My name is Eguchi, and I work in EAD (Entertainment Analysis & Development Division). I was the producer for Wii Sports. In the past, I have worked on projects such as creating the levels for Super Mario World. More recently, I was the producer on Animal Crossing: Wild World. I should add that I was also in charge of Wii Play, which was developed at the same time as Wii Sports.
Ota – My name is Ota, also of EAD. I was the director of Tennis, one of the five games in Wii Sports. I have worked on numerous projects, but presenting the “100 Marios” demo on stage at the unveiling of the GameCube was one of the more interesting ones! (laughs)
Yamashita – I’m Yamashita, and I work in EAD. I was in charge of Baseball and Boxing for Wii Sports. Recently, I have been involved in Big Brain Academy. Before that, I worked on Pikmin and Pikmin 2. In the past, I worked on the Mario Artist: Talent Studio project. But perhaps that is going too far back?
Iwata – Not at all! I may well ask you about that later! (laughs)
Shimamura – My name is Shimamura, also working in EAD. I was the director for Golf and Bowling on Wii Sports. I moved to EAD three years ago, and recently worked on Nintendogs.
Iwata – Thank you. Now, let’s begin with you, Eguchi-san. Could you describe for us how you began developing Wii Sports?
Eguchi – It initially grew out of the development of the Wii Remote, which is one of Wii‘s best features. During the development of the Remote, we did a range of trials to see what it was capable of. The prototype software we used included things like a baseball game designed by Yamashita-san, and a tennis game that Ota-san came up with. Wii Sports came about as a result of our discussions about how to turn these into fully-fledged games.
Iwata – So you didn’t start development with the intention of producing Wii Sports. Rather, you started by trying to design some trial software that would push the Wii Remote’s capabilities to the limit. Ota-san, could you tell us about the process which led to the development of the Tennis prototype?
Ota -I was a member of a small team of programmers that worked on all sorts of prototype software even before it was decided that the current Wii Remote would become the controller for Wii. So we really had a whole range of different sample controllers, for each of which we were tailoring specific prototype software. As Tennis was one of the games born out of that, it wasn’t actually the result of a clear intention to develop something specific. As the Wii Remote is rod-shaped, it didn’t take us long to come up with the idea of making a tennis game. Once we’d produced it, it was immediately apparent how well it worked. That’s honestly how it happened.
Iwata – I think the secret behind the creation of Nintendo‘s controllers is the seamless way that work on the prototype controller hardware is combined with the development of prototype software for those controllers. What I mean is, no sooner is there an idea for a controller from the hardware development side than the software developers come up with something to test it with. The hardware side then takes on board the feedback from this. Wii Sports came about as a result of that process, repeated over and over again, didn’t it?
Ota – That’s right. We really did produce a huge amount of trial software. A number of these ideas have been refined and ended up in Wii Play.
Iwata – I wonder what it’s like to have to keep coming up with new prototype software. I imagine that you had a constant stream of controllers coming, with all kinds of designs you would never have imagined. You then had to develop software specifically for use with each one. As there was no guarantee that any would end up as actual Nintendo products, you could only rely on your own instincts and inspiration…
Ota – Well, it was quite fun. Actually, it was a lot of fun! How can I put this…? It is much more fun to get new controllers one after the other, and then develop software as the inspiration takes you, than it is to try to think of new things to do with just one conventional controller, as we have up to now. Moreover, as the ultimate goal isn’t to produce a finished product, we could stop working on something after getting a certain amount of feedback. This meant that we were working on an extremely fast cycle, and we could just keep putting all of our ideas into action. As you can imagine, that’s a really fun job!
Iwata – So basically you got to spend all your time doing the part of the job you like the best! (laughs)
Ota – Yes, I did! I was able to keep making whatever I wanted, and stop at the point I wanted! (laughs)
Iwata – Sounds like your dream job!
Ota – It may well be! (laughs)
Iwata – Yamashita-san, tell us about the development of Baseball.
Yamashita – To be honest, the primary motivation behind it was the fact that no one else had made it! (laughs) I looked at all of the prototype software that people in the company had developed, but for some reason no one had made a baseball game. So I decided to try making a baseball game and the feel of it was really good. I got members of other teams to take a look at it and the game’s development was, in a way, a joint effort with Ota-san’s team.
Iwata – I see. How about Golf, Shimamura-san?
Shimamura – Golf began life as a mini-game in a different game altogether. It was initially developed not as a full golf game, but as a putting game. To turn it into a full golf game would have been a really large-scale undertaking, with courses to design and so on. But in the end, Ota-san and Yamashita-san’s projects combined and gradually expanded into a kind of “sports collection,” featuring several sports games. I was fortunate enough to be able to join forces with them.
Iwata – You just used the word “collection.” The idea of releasing a product consisting of a number of games is one that was formulated during the course of Wii’s development. The producer overseeing the whole project was Eguchi-san. Now, putting games together might sound simple, but it was a difficult task, wasn’t it?
Eguchi – It really was. After all, there were a lot of demos out there. You might even say it was chaotic! (laughs) Ota-san just spoke about how happy he was to be able to make the software he liked, and then stop making it at whatever point he liked, but…
Wii Sports Trailer
Iwata – I have experience working as a producer, so I know that from the point of view of the person who has to bring everything together, that can be a real nightmare! (laughs) It’s like having all these delicious-looking raw ingredients lying scattered around the place, but they still haven’t been mixed together to actually make something edible.
Eguchi – Absolutely! That’s exactly what it’s like. I was always agonizing over how I should cook all these ingredients for my guests. At that time, Shigeru Miyamoto-san was also puzzling over how best to put the games together. Then one day – and this was extremely unusual – Miyamoto-san jotted down a plan on a piece of paper for how we should put that chaotic pile of ingredients together.
Iwata – Really? Miyamoto-san wrote it down on a piece of paper?
Eguchi – He did! (laughs) I had never seen him do it before either. When I saw what he wrote I thought: “That must be what the inside of his head looks like!” It was that kind of plan…
Iwata – I once got him to show me his specification document plan for Pikmin. I say specification plan, but it was actually just a sheet of paper with things scribbled on both sides. You know what Miyamoto-san is like; he won’t get involved until the project is in real trouble and things are getting desperate, then he’ll suddenly present the producer with one of his sheets of paper! (laughs) But for Wii Sports, he managed to get this to you early on?
Eguchi – That’s right. I’m sure Miyamoto-san felt that we really had to get this into shape ready for the launch of Wii.
Iwata – I’m sure that’s what he felt. Just out of interest, what kind of instructions did he write down?
Eguchi – Well, I shouldn’t say this, but it was a really messy diagram! (laughs)
All – (laughter)
Iwata – Did it include the “Health Pack” idea that Miyamoto-san has been talking about a lot recently?
Eguchi – Yes, it did. He was trying to push the idea of Wii as a tool at the heart of the living room, connecting families, so that idea was clearly written down. From the “Health Pack” through to further ways to connect families, it looked like he’d emptied all of the jumbled contents of his head straight onto the paper! (laughs) But, in all seriousness, he wrote everything we needed to do on that paper. He roughly divided all of the trial software we had into categories for sports games or games for all the family. Those family-oriented games went on to be included in Wii Play. He also wrote that we should sell those games bundled with the Wii Remote, as well as explaining the way that the calendar on the Message Board would work in conjunction with these games. This was a function aimed at getting people to switch their Wii on every day. When people play Wii Sports or Wii Play, their results are automatically posted on the calendar in the Message Board. Miyamoto-san had broadly outlined functions like this in the plan he wrote down. That single sheet of paper turned out to be the actual starting line for the development of Wii Sports.
Iwata – Just to clarify, had you been put in charge of overseeing the project at that time?
Eguchi – No, I hadn’t.
Iwata – So, what you’re saying is that you looked at that piece of paper without knowing that you would be the one charged with the task of realizing it? (laughs)
Eguchi – I had absolutely no idea! (laughs)
Iwata – I see! (laughs) When Miyamoto-san first explained the concept for this game collection to me, I thought that we were really breaking new ground. Normally, we might either release software which revolves round a main part, with a few mini-games, or else a collection of lots of mini-games. But with Wii Sports, we have collected five games. The way games have been made up to now, if we thought we could develop Tennis, for instance, into a great game, we would first polish it so it could be a stand-alone release. We would make lots of different modes, get licensed by the Tennis Association or whatever and then put Mario in as a character, if it was a Nintendo game. That would have been the most obvious way to do things.
Eguchi – The reason we didn’t end up doing that is chiefly that we felt we had to get the product finished quickly. That’s because Wii Sports is an ideal game for demonstrating to users how fun the Wii Remote is.
Iwata – So we really wanted to release it at the same time as the hardware.
Eguchi – Yes, we had to get it ready in time. For that reason, we decided we had to prepare it for release as efficiently as we could, without allowing it to grow excessively large in scale. On top of that decision, we also had fixed in our minds something that you had said before: “Not every game has to be like an encyclopedia. There is nothing wrong with magazines or comics. If the idea is good enough, it’s ok to keep it simple.” So even if it’s not the most stunningly gorgeous game of all time, we chose to produce a game which can compete on the merits of its content, which while simple, also has real depth.
Iwata – I believe that a collection of games like this is truly ground-breaking. It’s not a single lavish stand-alone game, neither is it a compilation of 100 different mini-games. It has no official licenses or endorsements, nor are there any famous people featured in it. It lives up to the initial concept of offering a revolutionary control method, a brand new type of game. Moreover, it contains five different games, all of which have been individually designed so the player never tires of them. I don’t think there has ever been a collection of games quite like this.
Footnotes:
1. “100 Marios” was a demo shown at the unveiling of the GameCube at SpaceWorld 2000, a video game trade show hosted by Nintendo, held at the Makuhari Messe in Chiba. Beginning with a single sprite, the number of Marios on-screen increased until there were over 100 displayed.
2. The “Health Pack” is the working title for a future release for Wii, announced by Shigeru Miyamoto at a conference held in mid-September. He described it as a way to help get families exercising together.
Part 2 – Did Anyone Say It Should Look Realistic?
Iwata – Wii Sports and the Mii Channel fit together very well, don’t they? So much so that one would never guess that they had been developed separately.
Eguchi – That’s true. By being able to use a Mii that has been made in the Mii Channel as an in-game character, I feel these five sports games have come together very nicely. It even feels as if we designed Wii Sports this way so that everyone could appreciate how great the Mii concept is.
Iwata – Before the Mii Channel and Mii characters were incorporated into the internal system functions, there were a lot of lengthy discussions about what to do about the characters in Wii Sports, weren’t there?
Eguchi – Yes. First of all, one of the most important concepts for Wii is making something that everyone in the family can relate to. We thought the best way to do that was by having something in the game that represented the player or other people in their family. Of course, the best way to do that is by having characters that resemble those people.
Iwata – At the beginning, you even seriously considered having users take pictures with their digital cameras, putting that data on Wii via an SD card, and then pasting the pictures on the faces of their in-game characters.
Eguchi – But we realized that hardly anyone would actually do this unless they were really familiar with what to do. So no matter how much you wanted to get someone in your family involved in a game, there would be no way to do it unless someone else set it up for them first. We then realized that even the act of making a character to represent yourself would have to be something that people would want to try out for themselves. It was around that time that we heard about the kokeshi1 idea from (Shigeru) Miyamoto-san.
Iwata – You mean the idea of putting a kokeshi version of yourself in a number of games, right?
Eguchi – Right. Miyamoto-san had been talking about it for ages. And separately from that, there was a very simple prototype in which kokeshi-like characters were already implemented. Ota-san and many others who played this prototype said that they really felt “That’s me!” when they played it.
Wii Play Trailer
Ota – At the prototype stage, the characters that were used were very plain, simple models. This was mostly because our group didn’t have a designer!
Iwata – Ah, I see. Because there were only programmers in your group, you didn’t have a designer! (laughs)
Ota – That’s right. When we tried playing with these very simple characters, we really felt that we were the ones in the game. We tried using Mario as a character once, but then it didn’t feel like we were the ones playing anymore. It felt like Mario was actually the one playing and we were just controlling him. But it wasn’t the same when we used these simple models. Rather than feeling that the kokeshi model was playing, it actually felt like we were the ones in the game. But with such simple models, it felt like something was missing. Around this time, the caricature software for the DS was created.
Iwata – We also talked about this in our discussion of the Mii Channel, but it was when I came across this software and showed it to Miyamoto-san that things really took off, wasn’t it?
Eguchi – Yes, although at first we were not talking about making the Mii Channel a core system function. We were only thinking about using this software to make the characters in Wii Sports. But the more we talked about it, the more we realized that rather than incorporating this software in a specific game, it would be better if there were a place on Wii where these characters could be made. Before we knew it, we were planning the Mii Channel.
Iwata – We also had some good fortune here, didn’t we? In a discussion of the course that led to the Mii concept, we can’t forget about Mario Artist: Talent Studio, which Yamashita-san worked on a long time ago. Could you explain to us what kind of game that was?
Yamashita – Sure. Talent Studio was a piece of software that was developed for the 64DD, a hardware attachment for the Nintendo 64. There was a series of software for the 64DD called Mario Artist, in which the player could make their own creations. To be a little more specific, there were three games in the series. Paint Studio allowed the player to draw pictures, Polygon Studio let the player create 3D models, and Talent Studio allowed the player to create their own characters. I worked on the Talent Studio project, and… well… let me just say that it was very tough!
All – (laughter)
Yamashita – At that time, there was already a way to incorporate actual photos. Of course, SD cards weren’t around yet, so the process wasn’t that simple. The player had to use the Game Boy Camera to take pictures and then connect an accessory called the Capture Cassette to the 64DD. Just coming up with a way to let players do this was a lot of work, but what caused us the most trouble was finding ways to make use of the characters that the user had gone to all the trouble of making. We tried various ideas such as using the characters in mini-games, and… what do you call the type of game where the character has to move around on top of a ball?
Iwata – I believe it’s called “tamanori”2.
Yamashita – Right, tamanori! We tried using the character in a tamanori mini-game and so on. We ended up making a movie mode where the player’s characters could be used. In the end we weren’t able to successfully use the character in an actual game. Looking back at it now, I was still new at the company, and honestly speaking it was a tough time for me. Of course, I had fun with parts of it too, but… Well, to cut a long story short, when I first heard about doing personalized characters for Wii, I thought “Oh no!”
All – (laughter)
Yamashita – At first I felt anxious about it, but as I heard more about how it would fit in with the Wii concept, I came to realize that it was a good idea. With Talent Studio ten years ago, we didn’t have the concept of bringing the family together.
Iwata – Well, ten years ago, you started development with the simple idea that it would be fun to create a person that would appear in a game.
Yamashita – Right. In those days, we were just happy that we could make and manipulate a 3D image. I feel that over the last ten years the idea has been pared down to its essentials, leaving Wii to inherit only the most important parts.
Iwata – Were you able to apply any of the lessons you learned from Talent Studio to development this time around?
Yamashita – I think so. One thing that didn’t satisfy me about Talent Studio was the fact that we overdid the number of effects. I mean, when you decide to make caricatures, you want to try out a ton of different ideas. You want to try making realistic depictions, as well as trying to make them in the style of a manga3 or American comic book. Ten years ago, the design of the end result was disorderly and fractured, so with Wii Sports I kept telling everyone that all of the effects had to be neatly arranged. Around that time, someone showed me the DS caricature software and I thought “This is it! It’s already done!”
All – (laughter)
Iwata – It was already possible to use the characters you created in the DS, so it was very convincing, wasn’t it?
Yamashita – Definitely.
Iwata – At that time the DS software was already up and running, and everyone who saw it said: “That’s what we’ve been looking for!” If it wasn’t for that, it wouldn’t have all come together so quickly.
Yamashita – Well, Miyamoto-san had been talking about the kokeshi idea for a long time, but we never really reached any conclusions about it. We weren’t sure how or to what extent we should allow users to make their own characters. Speaking of which, after Talent Studio came
Manebito! (laughs)
Iwata – Ahh, Manebito was the same kind of software, wasn’t it? Shimamura-san, could you explain a bit about it to us?
Shimamura – Ahhh, I didn’t think the topic of Manebito would come up – after all, it was a game that never saw the light of day! Well, Manebito was a game for the GameCube that came about in the same way as Talent Studio. It was even shown at exhibitions with the name Stage Debut. It was also a game that allowed you to design characters to look like yourself, but it put more emphasis on the ability to customize the characters. There were hundreds of outfits and accessories to choose from, allowing the user to create characters with an incredible amount of detail. In the end it was never released… The big problem was… well… what to do with the characters once you’d made them!
All – (laughter)
Shimamura – Once you had created a character that looked like yourself, well, that was it. When we asked people what they thought about it, they always asked “What are we supposed to do next?”
Iwata – You ran into the same wall that they did with Talent Studio, didn’t you? (laughs)
Shimamura – We did. So when I heard that caricatures were going to be used in Wii Sports, I also thought “Oh no!”
All – (laughter)
Iwata – In other words, even though there are a lot of possibilities for playing with personalised characters, you couldn’t narrow it down enough. So time just kept on going by while you were looking for an answer.
Shimamura – That’s right. We knew that even if there were a ton of mini-games, people would soon get tired of playing them, and in the end the characters they made wouldn’t be used anymore. This problem was solved with Wii Sports by giving the characters a proper place, so to speak. In this game, you can have the experience of being a professional tennis player via your on-screen alter ego. I never realized how much fun it could be to feel like you’re really in a proper game, as opposed to just in a mini-game that doesn’t have any depth. Simply put, the level of emotional involvement in the game is completely different.
Iwata – Even with the plain kokeshi characters, you really feel like it’s you in there. I know I’ve already asked you all this before, but the kokeshi are very far from being realistic. Didn’t you feel some uncertainty, that they were just too simple?
Ota – I actually wanted to go ahead with just the plain kokeshi. During development when we tried it out with Mario, I was pretty nervous. I wouldn’t have known what to do if the kokeshi were replaced! (laughs)
Yamashita – The kokeshi might be simple, but your mind helps make it more real. In Wii Sports Baseball, even though the arms and legs aren’t shown when the fielders move, it feels realistic when you see them in motion.
Shimamura – Also, I think to some extent it’s precisely because the default characters are simple that they fit so well with the concept of creating personalized characters. The facial features are so exaggerated, you just move the eyes and eyebrows apart a little bit and you’ve got Yamashita-san! (laughs)
Eguchi – I think it’s great fun to see characters that resemble people you know playing tennis or baseball like pros.
Shimamura – People usually end up making people they know, don’t they? In the end, I think that’s the most fun.
Yamashita – Speaking of which, the other day we got a family to come in to play Wii Sports so we could hear their impressions. We made Mii characters of everyone in the family in advance, and they were all really happy with it. When the grandmother made a nice catch in baseball, everyone was so excited! They were all saying “Way to go, Grandma!” Beforehand, I had wondered if something like that would happen. Needless to say, their reactions exceeded my expectations.
Footnotes:
1. Kokeshi are traditional wooden Japanese dolls. They are cylindrically-shaped, with no arms or legs.
2. Tamanori means to balance oneself on top of a ball in Japanese.
3. Manga is the Japanese word for Japanese-style comic books.
– via Wii.Nintendo.com