The Tokaido Shinkansen is a railroad that travels from Kyoto to Tokyo, Japan, the two cities that house Nintendo's two most-prized development studios. Like the railway itself, this article is your information connection to the inner workings of Nintendo, its development teams, and the employees they house. Combining research, news, speculation, and rumor, we'll transport you to the heart of Nintendo.
Its been a long time since the Mario brothers and Donkey Kong met in a head-on collision. These characters were created alongside each other in the early 1980's when Shigeru Miyamoto and Gunpei Yokoi produced the Donkey Kong series for the arcade. The game starred a courageous plumber named Mario who was trying to save his girlfriend from the nefarious, escaped-ape Donkey Kong.
With the launch of Nintendo's Famicom console in 1983, a chasm was created as Donkey Kong was split in two. Mario became the focal point of Nintendo's development teams after the meteoric-rise worldwide of Super Mario Bros. Meanwhile, the Donkey Kong series became a dormant franchise internally after the clamor from the first two titles was silenced by the lackluster performance of Donkey Kong 3. Nintendo supposedly had plans for a Donkey Kong comeback on the NES in the early 90's but forewent the idea and decided to instead release the acclaimed Donkey Kong '94 on the Game Boy platform.
Around the same time, Nintendo development partner Rare was experimenting on the Super NES with the ACM graphics technology. After some ideas were pitched around, the beautiful pre-rendered graphics became the virtual world to Nintendo's beloved giant ape. The Donkey Kong Country series became a huge hit for Nintendo. Despite Miyamoto's disdain by stating the series proved gamers would accept mediocre game play in exchange for beautiful graphics, Nintendo executives were thrilled to be publishing this multi-million seller. Nintendo's relationship with Rare was out of its honeymoon phase by the late 1990's. The two companies were having a hard-time synchronizing their philosophies and ambitions. Nintendo started to question its financial infrastructure with Rare after several big budget disappointments like Donkey Kong 64, and Star Fox Adventures failed to meet expectations. Nintendo and Rare ended the decade long relationship resulting in Microsoft shelling out some big bucks for complete ownership of the UK-based developer.
Shigeru Miyamoto was not about to let his first and favorite creation simply fade away. Miyamoto entrusted two men to take charge of Donkey Kong. Takao Shimizu was a director on the last Donkey Kong title developed by EAD on the Game Boy. Yoshiaki Koizumi was an up and coming designer who had a lot of input on the Mario and Zelda series. Miyamoto and Nintendo president Satoru Iwata wanted the team to start an internal revolution with Donkey Kong. The majority of the Super Mario Sunshine team was relocated to Nintendo's Tokyo facility. The 30 members were joined shortly after by an influx of newly hired veteran talent from companies like United Game Artist, Data East, and Konami. The team started working with an initial template started in Kyoto, which was a 2.5D Donkey Kong game. Koizumi decided he wanted to introduce a completely new control scheme for Donkey Kong after hearing various complaints regarding Super Mario Sunshine's difficult control mechanics. The team settled on using the bongos after Mr. Miyamoto demonstrated to Shimizu and Koizumi what Namco was doing for Donkey Konga.
Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat finished production and released domestically on December 16th, 2004. The game was well-received by the media, and enjoyed decent sales. However, many would agree the success and appeal of this revamped platformer was severely limited by the ironically uninviting control requirement of the conga drum.
Yet, Donkey Kong is not ready to have his jersey retired. Shigeru Miyamoto confirmed to Japanese magazine Famitsu that Donkey Kong is in development for Nintendo's next-gen console dubbed Revolution. The former Mario Sunshine / Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat team will give the Donkey Kong franchise at least one more spin. The biggest news is that the development team will not be using the conga drums in favor of a new control scheme provided by the Revolution remote control.
The year 2006 will set the stage for what could be the biggest battle for the platform genre. In one corner, you have the Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat team developing a full-blown Revolution Donkey Kong title with a new control scheme. In the other corner, you have a brand new Mario team in Kyoto developing a new style of platformer for the Super Mario series that will deviate from the Super Mario 64 / Super Mario Sunshine scheme.
Shigeru Miyamoto is confirmed to be closely overseeing both games which are 'first-generation cycle' games, meaning they could even appear at the console's launch later this year. Both are also scheduled to be shown at E3 in May.
EAD Kyoto versus EAD Tokyo!
Mario versus Donkey Kong!
Platformer versus platformer!
Producer Hiroyuki Kimura versus Takao Shimizu!
Which mascot will be victorious? Which of these evolving series will achieve the perfect gameplay formula? And can Donkey Kong regain its platformer-crown or will Mario remain king? It is a very close call on paper and a battle for victory that hearkens back to the original Donkey Kong arcade. Regardless of the outcome, gamers are sure to win. We're excited to see what Nintendo delivers.
Book of Tezuka-Miyamoto - Chapter 3:16
The Nintendo DS has become the fastest selling game system in Japan. Analysts and critics have been paying close attention to the strategy that has propelled the two-screen portable to such a phenomenon. The most obvious observation cited is the unimaginable success of a new series of games Nintendo has dubbed "Touch Generation."
What exactly qualifies a game to be in the "Touch Generation"? Nintendo president Satoru Iwata first announced three years ago that the company would place heavy research and development behind a new philosophy to develop games that are very easy to pick up and play. Many misconstrued the announcement to mean Nintendo would develop very easy and short titles. This, of course, was not the case. Iwata and Nintendo chairman Atsushi Asada had many discussions about the large consumer base being ignored due to the industry trend of only developing sequels or new titles that were more complicated versions of games already released. Nintendo's vision was to create new video game lines like "Touch Generation", "Bit Generation", and others. The development of these new franchises and intellectual properties would spark appeal and interest of new gamers.
The birth of these non-linear, untraditional games started during the Nintendo 64 generation. Shigeru Miyamoto and producer Takashi Tezuka each took a small chunk of EAD designers to experiment with new types of games possible on the unreleased 64DD. The 64DD was a planned add-on peripheral for the Nintendo 64 that added several new features like 64MB rewritable discs, multiple disc reading, 4MB ram expansion, internal clock, and internet access. Miyamoto and Tezuka wanted to showcase these new features by creating completely new types of games that would best take advantage of this innovative hardware. Miyamoto's team began a project titled Mario Artist. Tezuka's team began a game called Animal Forest.
Mario Artist was one of the first 64DD titles in development. The game became so ambitious that it was set to span over five games. Nintendo announced Mario Artist: Communication Kit, Talent Maker, Paint Studio, Polygon Maker, and Sound Factory. Four of the five titles were developed in-house at EAD, while Mario Artist: Paint Studio was co-developed between Software Creations and EAD. Each game focused around productivity, allowing the player to use his or her imagination to create and produce great things of wonder. Although Miyamoto was very involved in the initial creation, his commitment was allocated to other projects during the arduous development process. The manager of EAD's Library & Tools division, Takao Sawano, took over as the producer on EAD's behalf. In the end, only four 64DD games were released to a very small niche-audience. Mario Artist: Sound Factory was cancelled.
Animal Forest was conceived by Takashi Tezuka as a communication game. The development team envisioned creating a game without a clear goal that allowed the player a change of pace from most other genres. A player in Animal Forest was asked to deliver things, write letters, talk to neighbors, catch fish, collect bugs, plant trees, shovel snow, pay bills, tidy up the house, among many other non-linear activities. Animal Forest was unique in encouraging sporadic play sessions throughout a long period of time. While the game was successful on the Nintendo 64 and GameCube, its true success came with the advent of Wi-Fi and the Nintendo DS. Casual gamers and hardcore gamers found Animal Crossing on the go with Wi-Fi a must have title, even making it the best selling game in Japan this year.
Satoru Iwata has confirmed that several new intellectual properties will be available throughout the launch window of the Revolution. Stage Debut is likely one of the new IPs being developed. The game is an evolution of Mario Artist: Talent Maker, with several new features and concepts from the other Mario Artist titles. Overall, it is the most ambitious title Nintendo has showcased and could possibly be a much bigger success than Animal Crossing, Brain-Age, Nintendogs, and Wario Ware. The GameCube version of Stage Debut was said to have required an e-card reader, microphone, camera, and memory card for it to perform all the functions the development team originally envisioned. Ultimately, Nintendo was experimenting with far too many accessories for it to ever release for GameCube. The title has been on the back-burner ever since.
What a game player can expect from the eventual release of Stage Debut is an enormous virtual canvas capable of creating just about anything. The original Stage Debut allowed for the creation of pictures, movies, and music videos. For example, a young film-maker could create a 3D movie about space ninjas taking over the world. One of the coolest features Nintendo introduced publicly about the game, was the ability to download famous video game characters and designers. The player was able to create his own virtual worlds and incorporate Pikmin, Mario, Link, Hideo Kojima, Shigeru Miyamoto, Hiroshi Yamauchi, and Ichiro Suzuki into the game. It remains to be seen how Nintendo will handle the microphone and camera functions on the Revolution (or Nintendo DS).
The "most talented designer at EAD, Yoichi Yamada" (Dylan Cuthbert) and a small team have been working on this project for over four years. With the Revolution incorporating a large memory capacity, Wi-Fi, microphone (likely), and other un-named features and peripherals, it will be a much bigger stage for the game to debut.