Iwata Questions Wii Developers

Iwata keeps at it in questioning the development team behind the Wii.

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata keeps on asking questions to his underlings, and we keep on translating away! The latest in Nintendo’s “Iwata Asks Wii Project” feature has Iwata asking Miyamoto and the likes more questions on the Wii’s controller.

Miyamoto was first asked what keywords he had in mind when development on the controller first started. “Not scary,” responded the super creator. “Something that doesn’t make you uneasy when you see it, but something that, from the moment you see it, you want to try out. However, I myself have been making games for a long time, so I wanted to make sure that past software would properly work with it.”

Miyamoto shared a passage from early in the controller’s development where Iwata said that it was okay to make a controller that’s not held by both hands, or something that resets the very concept of a controller. “It was great to be able to come up with ideas freely,” said Miyamoto. The freedom allowed the development staff to potentially come up with ideas like something that doesn’t use hands, or something that attaches to your head.

Iwata then asked Miyamoto to explain how the controller ended up with its current shape. The idea of a pointing device was offered up by Genyo Takeda, head of Wii development, answered Miyamoto. Following this, Akio Ikeda, the man in charge of the controller sensors, offered ideas on making the controller into its current rod-like shape. “This ‘rod’ area is where Ikeda and myself fully agreed,” said Miyamoto.

The rod-shaped design went through a few changes. “During meetings,” recalled Ikeda, “Mr. Miyamoto often held his cell phone and asked, ‘is something like this okay now?’.” Miyamoto recalled having even brought in a car navigator. Iwata himself recalled the creation of a demo unit which would be held by both hands, with a pointing device located in the center. Demand for this particular shape was so high that the development staff even gave it a special name, the “Gunpai,” and tested it out heavily.

Eventually, the staff decided to start off with a rod-shape and slowly convert it into a controller. This lead to the final controller’s shape. “When it finally became rod-shaped,” said Miyamoto, “and was to be controlled by one hand, numerous problems were instantly solved.” This is often the way in which difficult problems are solved, commented Iwata.

Miyamoto noted that it’s often the case that once something is created, it’s shown to other people, with the idea of getting positive and negative feedback. With the Wii controller, rather than wondering what people would think having seen the controller, the staff finished the design and wanted to go about convincing people of its merits.

Iwata recalled the time when the pointing device was first demoed in a meeting. “Ah, it feels good,” was his first thought. “I’d tried out pointing devices before, but most often, the response is bad, and more often, rather than feeling good, they feel unsatisfying. The pointer idea was of course good, but the way it was put together, or perhaps the feel of the control, was extremely good.”

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