OMG Nintendo.com

Miyamoto's E3 Pikmin Slip

Jul. 28 3:25 PM by Lynxara

Hey, it showed a little late, but I figured one last little E3 post wouldn't hurt. This guest-post comes courtesy of Thomas Wilde, who attended the behind-closed-doors Q&A session along with several other members of the press. The subject is, of course, the details of how Miyamoto surprised everyone by confirmed that he had a team at work on a new Pikmin, presumably for Wii.

After the convention proper closed on Wednesday night, a number of journalists were quietly invited to attend a developer Q&A session in the Staples Center's Concourse Hall. Katsuya Eguchi, producer on Animal Crossing: City Folk, and Shigeru Miyamoto were on hand to answer questions, through translators, concerning Nintendo's first-party line-up for the show, including Wii Music, Wii Sports Resort, and Animal Crossing.

Now, truthfully, the session was something of a waste of time. Eguchi and Miyamoto burned a lot of the session demonstrating the games to a bunch of people who'd already had the games demonstrated to them, and you could tell most of the journalists were getting a little irritated. One German reporter, whether he meant to or not, asked in an accusing tone if Wii Music wasn't better described as a toy than a game. Miyamoto responded, simply, "Yes, and that's why it's better than a game."

Eventually, the questions started moving from the titles du jour into other Nintendo properties, including discussion of such past titles as Eguchi's Wave Race and its similarity to one of the minigames in Wii Sports Resort; it turns out that some of the same team worked on both titles, so if you're playing one and it feels like the other, that's not just you. (When asked about the possibility of a sequel to Wave Race, Eguchi said he couldn't comment, but that he was currently focusing all his team's efforts on Wii Sports Resort.)

This subject drift, in turn, led to the most interesting news to come out of the session, courtesy of a question asked by Chris Remo of Gamasutra.

• Chris Remo: ...I have to ask Mr. Miyamoto, are you still thinking about more Pikmin?
• Miyamoto: ...I'm actually on the same floor as most of my staff, and I sit in the same type of desk as all of them. Because of all the communication involved, I try to sit as close as possible. Among those staff, there's staff from the Pikmin team, staff from the Zelda team, and they're all enjoying creating their games.
• ...when it's time to announce such a title, we'll announce it, so please look forward to it.
• [blurted out at the end] We're making Pikmin.

It was funny to watch. Miyamoto started off with your typical rambling not-an-answer speech, as is his wont, then tagged on the last bit on the end with a big smile, like he couldn't keep up the charade any longer.

• << prev
• next >>