A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad.
Shigeru Miyamoto
I think that inside every adult is the heart of a child. We just gradually convince ourselves that we have to act more like adults.
Video games are bad for you? That's what they said about rock-n-roll.
Nintendo's philosophy is never to go the easy path; it's always to challenge ourselves and try to do something new.
The obvious objective of video games is to entertain people by surprising them with new experiences.
I enjoy thinking about ways to create something that other people have not even thought about, something no one has managed to achieve.
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.
To create a new standard, you have to be up for that challenge and really enjoy it.
When I create a game, I try to focus more on the emotions that the player experiences during the game play.
I think that the entertainment industry itself has a history of chasing success. Any time a hit product comes out, all the other companies start chasing after that success and trying to recreate it by putting out similar products.
There are some ghost stories in Japan where - when you are sitting in the bathroom in the traditional style of the Japanese toilet - a hand is actually starting to grab you from beneath. It's a very scary story.
Players are artists who create their own reality within the game.
I don't want to criticize any other designers, but I have to say that many of the people involved in this industry - directors and producers - are trying to make their games more like movies. They are longing to make movies rather than making videogames.
I'd like to be known as the person who saw things from a different point of view to others.
Well, for over a year now at my desk, a prototype program of Luigi and Mario has been running on my monitor. We've been thinking about the game, and it may be something that could work on a completely new game system.
My days all follow much the same pattern. They are structured and typical.
What I found is that just in the lifestyle today, people have fewer and fewer opportunities to get exercise.
I never really participated in specific sports or anything, but once I hit 40, I started to get a little bit more active and began swimming more.
There's definitely space for uniqueness in a home console.
Our job as the game creators or developers - the programmers, artists, and whatnot - is that we have to kind of put ourselves in the user's shoes. We try to see what they're seeing, and then make it, and support what we think they might think.
I don't think as a creator that I could create an experience that truly feels interactive if you don't have something to hold in your hand, if you don't have something like force feedback that you can feel from the controller.
This is the entertainment industry, so game designers have to have a creative mind and also have to be able to stand up against the marketing people at their company - otherwise they cannot be creative. There are not that many people who fit that description.
I don't really think of things in terms of legacy or where I stand in the history of Nintendo or anything like that.
Anything that is impractical can be play. It's doing something other than what is necessary to continue living as an animal.
I made some games, but I'm pretending like I didn't because they all turned out weird.
I think I can make an entirely new game experience, and if I can't do it, some other game designer will.
What I really want to do is be in the forefront of game development once again myself.
Of course, when it comes to Japanese role-playing games, in any role-playing game in Japan you're supposed to collect a huge number of items, and magic, and you've got to actually combine different items together to make something really different.
Games have grown and developed from this limited in-the-box experience to something that's everywhere now. Interactive content is all around us, networked, ready. This is something I've been hoping for throughout my career.
When I'm making video games today, I want people to be entertained. I am always thinking, How are people going to enjoy playing the games we are making today? And as long as I can enjoy something other people can enjoy it, too.
Today, there are many, many ways to entertain people in one single videogame. And the Internet has made it so easy for people to ask for clues.
Providing new means of entertainment is the important thing.
Actually, 3D is really the most normal thing because it's how those of us with two eyes usually see the world. TVs are the unusual things in 2D!
I'm very impressed that there are so many fans - not just in Japan, but here in America - that are fond of the work that I've done. I'm actually kind of embarrassed by it all.
I think when you talk about competing against others, the problem is that you refer to something that's been done already and try to beat it.
Japan actually is an aging population, and so as the population has aged, they have had a lot more problems with health.
Of course, I have my own limits as to how much game software I can take care of at any one time.
I try not so much to create new characters and worlds but to create new game-play experiences.
As a kid, I was a big comic fan and I liked foreign comics as well.
I think what's really the most ideal thing is for the player themselves, within their own imagination, to carve out what they view as being the essence of the character.
I know as a child, I was really interested in becoming a manga artist, to create my own stories and illustrate them and present something that people would be interested in reading and looking at as well.
It would be a joy for me if someone who was working with me became a big success.
You can use a lot of different technologies to create something that doesn't really have a lot of value.
What comes next? Super Mario 128? Actually, that's what I want to do.
I always try and come up with a clear theme when I'm making a videogame.
I wanted to make something very unique, something very different.
Japanese people have a funny habit of abbreviating names.
People often say that videogames made by Western developers are somehow different in terms of taste for the players, in comparison with Japanese games. I think that means that the Western developers and Japanese developers, they are good at different fields.
Nowadays I think it's really important that designers are really unique and individual.
I'm not saying that I'm going to retire from game development altogether.