Shigeru Miyamoto x Shigesato Itoi (1989)

—First, regarding recent trends, I think that with the rapid advancement of hardware, games are increasingly expected to deliver realism. I'd like to start from that point and ask about the future possibilities for games.

Itou: Hmm. Well, in the beginning, there were a lot of spaceship games, so whether the movement was fast or slow didn't really matter. It felt fine regardless. But now that we have more characters—say, a bear here or a weasel there—you have to differentiate how each one moves. Let me ask you, Miyamoto: for those kinds of minute movements, is it the programmer who handles the fine-tuning?

Miyamoto: Yes. The director specifies what they want, and the programmer translates those ideas into numbers.

Itou: In that case, does the programmer look at the character's movement on the screen and think, "Hmm, this doesn't feel much like a bear," or can they tell just by looking at the numbers?

Miyamoto: They can tell. However, making things look different isn't actually that much of a struggle anymore because the technology has improved so much. That is, everyone kind of already knows, "Yeah, this is about how a weasel should move." What's more important is whether having a weasel and a bear even makes for a fun game. That's what you need to figure out relatively early on.

—So you mean the realism of the game system, not the visual realism?

Miyamoto: Exactly. In the medium of animation, you just show what you want people to see. So if you want someone to move fast, you just make them run fast. But in a game, you can't just make a character speed up for that one moment.

There are all sorts of strategies involved there. Take a human character, for example. Let's say you design them to walk in a pleasant, smooth way. This may conflict with the player's feelings—there are times when they want to run away, or times when they want to chase something. If the character keeps walking in that "pleasant, smooth" way when the player is desperate to escape, the player is going to get pissed off.

Itou: "Hurry the hell up!" (laughs)

Miyamoto: Players think, "Hey! I'm trying my best here, you need to try hard too!" (laughs) There was a time when animation-heavy games which prioritize visual smoothness over responsiveness were becoming the mainstream, and several games with very "beautiful" movement came out. But as games, they were pretty much failures.

—Like what kind of games?

Miyamoto: Take karate games, for instance; the characters move with this incredibly smooth, fluid motion.1 Now, watching an enemy move fluidly and slowly draw their sword is all well and good, but the player doesn't want to draw their sword slowly. The player expects realism from the enemy, but since the player themselves is already "real," you have to design the game to match their feelings as closely as possible. That's why we try to make sure the player's intent is properly reflected through their button inputs.

—Like how Mario can change direction in mid-air. That's actually impossible in reality, yet when you're playing, it doesn't feel weird at all. I think that's amazing, and I suppose that's what "game realism" really is.

Miyamoto: Right, it's about how it feels to the player. If you think about it, Mario's jumping ability is actually ridiculous... he'd be the greatest Olympic athelete ever! (laughs) If Mario only jumped as high as a human, then following real physics would be fine. And back in the Donkey Kong days, he only jumped about his own height, which didn't feel wrong. But once you're leaping three or four times your own height, you’ve already left "reality" far behind.

Itou:  If Mario jumped like a normal human, you'd have to make the rules of the game more like the rules of a realist novel. But once you cross a certain threshold, the player's brain sees the screen and immediately accepts that it's okay for him to do superhuman things.

Miyamoto: I think that's right. Look at Mario in Donkey Kong. In the real world, if you fell from a height of 10 feet or so, you could easily die. But when you actually play the game, dying from a mere 2-centimeter fall wouldn't make any sense. (laughs) That's why lately characters just leap down from anywhere without a care.

Since the very beginning, what makes a video game fun is that kind of "unrealistic everyday life"—worlds that seem like they could exist in reality, but don't. Ultimately, a game is entirely composed of rules, and the programmer is the one who decides those rules. In that sense, the programmer is God within that world.

A God can create any kind of world they want, but if that world doesn't feel convincing, no one will want to enter it. That's why an unrealistic everyday setting is about doing strange things within a set of rules that everyone accepts. Though, in the end, there are still parts where people won't accept it unless it feels "real," so you are forced to be realistic to some extent.

Itou: Realism as a bare minimum, with a dash of something strange.

Miyamoto: And that's basically what they did in cartoons from that era, like Tom and Jerry. That's why things like Chaplin or Tom and Jerry have been such vital fuel for our work.

Itou: Watching them gives you tons of hints. It's deep. But nowadays, you have to string together so many of those "plausible-but-unreal" things to craft a single game world.

Miyamoto: Yeah. Back in the day, one gimmick was enough.

—So what you're saying is, pursuing realism in games doesn't equate to games simulating reality.

Itoi: That's exactly what I meant when I said that graphics becoming realistic was, when you think about it, a ridiculous thing. If we go down that path it will eventually lead to caricature. A self-imposed bondage.

Miyamoto: I remember you saying that before. Rather than going for realism, you want changes like stereo sound. People aren't pining after perfection anymore. I totally agree.

Itou: It's about how weird you can get. Realistic sounds are just boring, you know?

Itoi: On the PC Engine CD-ROM, the games use actual human voices, but it's really lame.

Itou: It ruins the immersion. You lose the ability to project yourself into the character because you're forced to hear this other distinct voice.

Itoi: Imagine if the Flying Men's lines in MOTHER were read by a human voice... wouldn't that be awful?

Itou: That'd be terrible. Everyone is already reading those lines in their own heads, giving him their own version of a frail, delicate voice.

Miyamoto: In my head, I don't picture most game characters as Japanese. The protagonist always has blue eyes, right?

Itou: By the way, did you envision the colors for MOTHER like that from the start?

Itoi: The colors for MOTHER were actually a proposal from my designer. He came to me and said, "I've got this option and that option," so I asked him, "Well, what do you think?" and he told me, "Personally, I think this one is the best."

That's generally how I work. I ask the person doing the job. On the surface, it may look like I'm trying to be even-handed or something, but I definitely play favorites. But the thing is, if the person actually doing the work says that's the one!, I can usually get behind it.

You see, someone on the outside looking in might have all kinds of different opinions. Maybe they dislike muted colors, who knows. But when someone actually involved in the project—that is, the designer himself—says they want to do something with a certain level of passion, there's always a reason for it. A deep, fundamental reason. Just like rolling over in your sleep.

—Rolling over?

Itoi: Yeah. I've been making the point lately that rolling over in your sleep isn't a random action; there's a real, fundamental reason behind it.

Itou: Really?

Itoi: Take the way I'm sitting right now… even this pose is a kind of "rolling over in your sleep."

Itou: Ah, I see what you mean.

Itoi: In other words, I'm sitting like this because my body has an actual necessity to be in this posture. It's the result of a struggle between two things: the fact that I'm being watched by others, and my own internal necessity. I believe the future of "creative work" lies in how much we can tap into and breathe life into that kind of raw instinct.

Miyamoto: (laughs) That's very clever.

Itoi: So, if you tell someone, "No, do it this way," about something they love, it's like forcing them to roll over against their will. They'll get sick. And it's not enjoyable for the viewer either. You know, I want to apply this idea to games, but I just don't know how. (laughs)

Miyamoto: As we become able to use more colors, it's boring if every image looks the same—if it's just "realistic" art. That's why we're seeing things finished with an illustrative touch, where the whole game has a specific "feel." Whether it's music or art, a game with a distinct worldview is just more fun. When you go that route, the individual creator's touch becomes everything.

Itoi: But even in the world of graphic design, there's a real shortage of truly great illustrators. If the video game industry starts getting greedy for that kind of talent too, I don't know what'll happen. There are still nowhere near enough people working in the information industry.

Miyamoto: No, there aren't.

Itoi: With Giygas in MOTHER… I feel like we could have refined him so much more, but… well, it's out there now.

Miyamoto: I know. I really wanted to give it one more shot, right at the very end.

Itoi: For that final form, I'd actually given instructions for it to be like Butoh, that "dance of darkness." Something incredibly frail... like if they were right there in front of you, you'd feel like they'd collapse if you barely touched them. Eerie and beautiful… but that's easier said than done, right? (laughs)

Itou: That sounds… hard. (laughs)

Itoi: I wanted to depict the terror of the weak. But man, it was tough.

Miyamoto: True, but looking at it another way, there are plenty of cases where being a bit crude is actually a plus. Take English, for example. We Japanese have a real complex about it, right? We can't actually understand what they're saying in the movies. So we read the subtitles and just imagine the rest. In a way, we're lucky: the hero becomes even more "heroic" in our minds.

Itoi: Because you don't understand the words, that sense of "mystique" stays intact. Rap music is the perfect example of that, isn't it? (laughs)

Itou: Yeah, yeah.

Miyamoto: I've got this strange attraction to bluegrass music. Even in bluegrass, a lot of the songs are super tragic, like about losing your job or your wife leaving you. And we just laugh and sing along to them. (laughs)

—Speaking of realism, I think Itou's novel "No Life King" also explored a theme of "another kind of reality" in relation to our current reality. It makes me wonder if there isn't a new kind of reality belonging to this new generation.

Itoi: For someone like me, the way I'm built, my age and life experiences, prevent me from reaching that "other reality." It just doesn't exist for me anymore. To be perfectly blunt, I've no hope of ever reaching it. Yet, here I am, starting from that place of disconnect and making games because I find them interesting. I think that difference, that gap, is quite apparent in MOTHER. You're right on the edge yourself, Itou-kun. You're trying to understand it, but in truth, you're still fundamentally different from the new generation.

Itou: It really is about how we're built, isn't it? (laughs) The kids who are obsessed with games today, they're as human as we are. But society seems determined to treat them like they're something else entirely.

Miyamoto: Is there such a thing? This "other" reality?

Itou: I mean, when you're actually playing a game, there's no way you aren't conscious of the fact that you are the one playing it. The idea that you could somehow "leap beyond" the fact that it's a game… well, that's just impossible.

Itoi: If we're talking about immersive tricks, movies are actually far more sophisticated at doing that.

Itou: Exactly. It's so bizarre. Society buys into this image of kids "getting sucked into the tube"... and people actually believe that.

Miyamoto: We call the games we make a simulated experience. And while we know players get immersed in that simulation, they're still aware it's a game. To say they confuse it with reality is incredibly condescending.

Itou: Exactly. If they felt like that, they wouldn't find bugs. They're looking for bugs precisely because it's a game.

Miyamoto: What made No Life King interesting was that it didn't underestimate kids. Adults often portray children as very innocent, easily fooled, thinking pure thoughts… but that's not how it is, is it? Kids know some pretty bad stuff too, and they have their own strategies to deal with it. You can't just dismiss that.

Itoi: That's why they're little adults. Adults who aren't quite tall enough, not quite smart enough. But they manage to do quite a lot despite their shortcomings.

Itou: Exactly.

Itoi: But so-called arcade games have a vibe similar to gay magazines. It's a closed world, a world outsiders don't understand, where like-minded people gather as their circle shrinks. Like narrowing concentric circles. So I think it's really important that what I did this time with MOTHER went in a different direction.

—You mean the so-called "otaku" world.

Itoi: Speaking of that mindset… this is a slightly different topic, but take game mechanics, for example. Let's say you have an item in the game that makes you so strong it practically breaks the game. When you look at game magazines, they talk about those items as if it's some bargain for the player. They think it's a good thing, in other words. They don't stop to think, "If you put something like this in, it's not even a game anymore." The idea that anything that gives you an advantage must be "good"—it's starting to feel a bit warped to me.

Miyamoto: That's because their goal isn't to inhabit the character and enjoy the experience, it's just to beat the game.

Itoi: I guess they just want to be able to say, "I won!"

Miyamoto: "I finished it in three days," and all that.

Itoi: Boasting about speed in games is a sickness, really.

Miyamoto: Well, for those who call themselves gamers, I suppose that's just their stock-in-trade.

Itoi: I guess so, but I don't really want to encourage people to brag about that kind of thing. That's a lonely person, I think.

Itou: There's something empty about it.

—Boasting about what level you were when you finished... it makes the game sound like a driving school course.

Itoi: Exactly. You only brag about speed when you're talking about a chore you hated. (laughs)

Itou: Some people just pick "Run" every single time.

Itoi: Or they warp their way through the whole game to rush to the ending. You have to wonder why they even bought it in the first place. Don't you want to try out the "useless" magic, too?2

Itou: Yeah. That's like buying a book just to read the afterword.

Itoi: I'd hate to see that kind of thing become the "new reality" we've been talking about.

—So basically, the question is: what direction should video games take to make us happy?

Itou: Yeah. What kind of games are selling well right now?

Miyamoto: Well… I'm not really sure, to be honest. If I say too much, I might get in trouble! (laughs) But if I were to take a more cynical view, I'd say that what's "selling" has mostly been driven by fashion. There's a more timeless side to gaming where the players and the way they play doesn't really change all that much. But people tend to look at whatever is at the absolute peak of hype and say, "Look, this is what's selling!" To me, that's just fashion, so I really can't say where the industry is going.

Itou: Ah, I see. So in reality, every genre has its own dedicated following, and there's this steady, grounded work going on behind the scenes.

Miyamoto: Right now, all else being equal in terms of fun, the games that sell are usually the grand, large-scale RPGs with sprawling stories and worlds... games that take a long time to play through. But personally, I prefer games you can finish quickly. I think they have a much better chance of reaching a wider audience. Everyone is so focused on "long-play" games because they think that's what sells, but then something like Tetris comes along and just blows everyone away.

Itou: I see.

Itoi: I heard from Famicom Tsushin that no game has sold 200,000 copies this year.

—It feels like everything's been released already, and there's really very little that I want to buy.

Itoi: We're in a transitional period. In a way, it feels like the whole industry is just letting out a long sigh of frustration. We have these established genres—adventure, sports, shooting—and they form the core foundations, but there's this huge, collective desire right now for "one more" new genre to breathe life back into the room.

—But the current trend seems to be combining shooters with RPGs, and doesn't that feel a bit... off? 3

Miyamoto: It's that idea that if you stick two systems together, you'll get an even more amazing system, right? Sometimes that approach does work, but I don't want to do that for every game.

Itoi: But building something up from scratch is a real challenge. It's like how rhythmic gymnastics only exists because it had traditional gymnastics as a foundation. It's that kind of relationship.

Itou: Are developers really out of ideas? I can't stop wondering.

Miyamoto: I think there are still plenty of possibilities in game design. For instance, imagine a game where you input something, and when you check back a month later, it's transformed into something totally unexpected. We don't have anything like that, do we?

Or, take how people living in apartments today can't keep pets. If someone who was obsessed with the joy of having a pet made a game that captured that feeling, I think it would become a huge craze. And since it's a simulation, you could even include the "unfortunate" parts, like the pet eventually passing away, as part of the experience.

Itoi: Sometimes, just adding a little extra care to the details makes a world of difference. Like in Mario, if he falls into the water, he starts to swim. Most games would just have you fall in and it's Game Over, but you've prepared a response to that. That's a massive distinction. I think players are starting to demand that kind of thoughtfulness much more now.

Miyamoto: That's because games today are still based on the style of play from the 100-yen coin-op era, I think. Everyone tries to do the same things within that same rigid framework, so it feels like we've hit a dead end and there's nowhere left to go. But if you just move the starting line, you can still find plenty of use for those old frameworks.

For example, the problem is that everyone tries to build action games based on Earth. What if gravity worked differently? What if there were two different types of atmospheres? If you start thinking about those kinds of shifts, even within the same old framework, you might stumble upon something totally unexpected and incredibly fun during development. There are plenty of people in America doing exactly that, which is why new things keep emerging there…

—In America, they're even coming out with all sorts of strange controllers, aren't they?

Miyamoto: Exactly. Things like volume controls, trackballs, mice... when input methods change like that, new possibilities open up.

—Though some of them make you wonder, "What could possibly be fun about using this?" (laughs)

Miyamoto: Well, whether a controller is worth buying for just one game depends on whether it opens up a new horizon of play or not. That's why I don't think the medium is at a dead end at all. Focusing on things like "trends" or "best-sellers" might make it look like we've hit a wall, but in reality, I think the possibilities are as open as they've ever been.

—When you were making MOTHER, were you conscious of trying to create a game that was unlike anything before it? Did you set out to intentionally strip away all the established tropes and rules of RPGs...?

Itoi: No, I wasn't thinking that way at all. Breaking the rules just for the sake of saying you broke them is just bragging, and it isn't very interesting. Ultimately, I was making this game for myself; I just wanted things to move and feel the way I thought they should. The basic gameplay of MOTHER isn't actually that different from standard RPGs. That said, I did include a lot of unnecessary stuff, and I purposefully did things that I knew would draw complaints from the hardcore otaku crowd. During the development I kept insisting that my way was the right way, but to tell you the truth, I was actually pretty nervous about it. (laughs)

—I suppose that's where it feels a bit different from previous RPGs.

Itoi: As a creator, you're always excited by the possibility that the audience might actually surpass you. But at the same time, you harbor this "malice", this desire to make them believe they've surpassed you when you're actually pulling the strings. It's the same with novels. You might tell people, "Oh, this part is just a cheap tear-jerker," while secretly putting your whole heart into writing it. (laughs) In other words, you don't build every part of the work with the same intent. I think that's an area where games still have a lot of room to grow. That's why I was so happy to see that players didn't feel they had to do everything in MOTHER.

—You mean you can reach the end without doing everything?

Itoi: You can.

Miyamoto: That's one thing that sets MOTHER apart. Normally, you're supposed to make it so the player can't finish unless they've ticked every box.

Itoi: Exactly. If you build the game with a strict one-to-one relationship between every lock and key, you end up with a perfectly logical, rational game. By moving away from that, things admittedly got a bit messy in MOTHER… but I think something else, something different, emerged because of it. There really aren't many games out there that include things you simply don't have to do.

Miyamoto: We distinguish between "field" and "performance" systems in a game's structure. Mario is built that way, too. Say I want to add some funny animation for an enemy at the end of a level, and I show it to programmers or hardcore gamers… they'll say "It's the end of the level, no one's going to even see that!" But I just tell them, "That's fine. There will always be some people who stop to watch." (laughs)

Itoi: The "rare guests," in other words.

Miyamoto: Exactly. It's fun for me, too. I might think, "I wonder if I can make him dance?" And then when I see it, it's just fun to watch. There are so many enjoyable things in a game beyond just "beating" it.

Itoi: Like the Frog Suit in Mario. That thing is basically useless! (laughs)

Miyamoto: It just hops around awkwardly once you're on land. I really had to force that one into the game. (laughs)

Itoi: According to the hardcore, that's a total waste of an item. They'll actually write, "Do not pick up the Frog Suit" in their guides. But we love that thing! (laughs)

Itou: You're so kind, Miyamoto.

Itoi: That's why he loves playing with kids.

Itou: I bet he does. He probably likes making funny faces and stuff like that.

Itoi: In that sense, he's a very strict person.

Miyamoto: Strict? You think so?

Itoi: Yeah. You're strict about creating a space that is truly fun to play in.

Miyamoto: Well, I do think the direction we're headed in right now is the right one. Games are systems, after all. We call RPGs "simulated experiences," but the real fun in RPGs came from things like seeing your character grow in power beyond anything you imagined, or the simple joy of saving up money to buy something. There were so many enjoyable elements like that. The "story" was just something we layered on top of that after the fact. That's why those games worked perfectly well as a linear experience.

Itoi: Yeah, that was true back then.

Miyamoto: But now, just like having a car is taken for granted, what made those games fun has become old hat. So now we've added more complex stories to the mix, but the drama of that story is really a question of what kind of "field" you build for it.

—So that's what you meant by field systems earlier.

Miyamoto: Yeah. The problem is, when you build an open field type of game, you have to provide so many "follow-ups" for every possible player action. If you try to build that kind of world using the same amount of memory as a linear game, players will end up complaining because it's too short. They'll quite literally feel "short-changed" if they compare it to a longer linear game. Even if the world is technically just as expansive, they'll feel like the play-time was shorter.

Itoi: In MOTHER, I used "YES/NO" prompts constantly. I designed them with the assumption that players would want to try both options. But the memory used to include all those unique "NO" responses was memory we had to shave off from the length of the main path.

Miyamoto: The great thing about computers is that you can have "do-overs," right? In real life, you don't get those. It would be miserable if you couldn't try again in a game, but it's interesting how having those do-overs makes the experience less tragic.

—You can die as many times as you want.

Miyamoto: Yeah, you can even die on purpose. In the real world, if you choose "YES," you can never see what would have happened with "NO." But the essence of play is wanting to see both. That's just the nature of games. If we made games where dying meant starting over from zero every single time, people would find that world too harsh to want to play in.

That's why I think it would be fascinating if RPGs moved away from just making the scenarios more complex. Instead, imagine a game with only five houses, but where the "neighborly relations" within those five houses were endlessly deep. It'd be really interesting if more people started making things with that kind of focus. Even if hundreds of games like that came out, I bet every single one of them would be enjoyable in its own way.

Itoi: You can make a linear game as long as you want, though.

Miyamoto: Well, it won't feel short if the gameplay is compelling enough that people play it a lot. Eventually we'll probably solve the memory limitations we have now. I'm looking forward to a time when we have smarter computers, with something like a built-in interpreter that can automatically organize the parts that don't make logical sense, or even fix scenario bugs for us. Once that happens, we'll be able to move to the next level. I have high hopes for that.

Itou: I see. That's the next generation of games.

Miyamoto: There's this new software on the Macintosh called HyperCard. It's a system that lets you create things that are almost like interactive picture books. It's designed so that if a creator just throws their scenario in, the system builds the world for them.

There's a game on it called The Manhole. You slip down inside a manhole and find yourself in a surreal world like Alice in Wonderland. You might go into one room and find a dragon that bakes cookies with its own breath, or another room where a rabbit is watching TV, and you can use a remote to change the channels and see different pictures on the screen. It's a game where you just wander around, looking at things here and there.

Itoi: That sounds wonderful.

Miyamoto: Picture books are fun just to flip through, aren't they? And really, there isn't anything else people read quite as often as a picture book. A child will flip through the same book for two or three years. With HyperCard, you can use fairly realistic animations and fit about 600 or 800 pages worth of picture-book memory onto it. I think that represents a real future for how computers can be used. It's a level of depth that a physical book could never catch up to, yet it's all contained in this small, playable size. It's really quite fun.

Itoi: It's like a journey. A tiny journey.

Itou: Yeah, maybe a journey is the closest comparison.

Itoi: It's The Neverending Story.

Itou: But then the question becomes: how long will players stick with a game with no goal? If a game has no goal whatsoever, they'll probably just end up tossing it aside.

—That's true. It's not so easy to embark on a journey without a purpose. You need something, even if it's just saying, "The sunset is beautiful, let's go over there." Of course, the actual joy of the journey isn't limited to the sunset itself, but you still need that initial reason to go.

Itou: Exactly. The "sunset" is there as a form of catharsis, but in reality, you're enjoying everything but the sunset. It would be wonderful if games could achieve that same kind of balance.

Miyamoto: It's incredibly difficult to make someone feel a sense of purpose while still ensuring the journey itself is the fun part. Up until now, "reaching the goal" was the primary objective, and I think we've reached the peak of that style of design. Just as people were starting to wonder if games were only about reaching the end, something like Tetris—a "pure" game if there ever was one—comes along and shakes things up. I think the very definition of a "game" is about to change. We've already moved away from the arcade era; now we're taking the next step. It's something I'm very excited about. I'd love it if we could just say, "If it's fun, it's a game."

—So as long as a computer is fun to interact with, it doesn't matter what you call it.

Miyamoto: With HyperCard, for example, you can wander through an art museum. You receive a program at the entrance, walk down the hallways, and then you can just look around. You can stand back and view five or six paintings at once, or you can step closer, close enough to examine the actual texture of the art. That kind of experience is possible now.

Itou: Oh, it's like that ESPER machine from Blade Runner. The one that goes shu-shu-shu while it scans the photos. I love stuff like that. But I wonder if it will take a while for the audience to learn how to enjoy themselves without the plot constantly moving forward.

Miyamoto: Players already have a "game mindset" fixed in their heads. But if we instead started by framing these interactive experiences as books or other types of familiar media, I think people would find them fascinating.

Itou: Then maybe at first we should do the opposite—market it aggressively as a "book" and release it that way. Once they're used to it, we can gradually shift it back toward being a "game."

Itoi: You'll never succeed unless you first get them to give up on their expectations. It's like someone who's dying to eat eel. If you give that guy a steak, he'll just get mad because "it doesn't taste like fish." I suspect we're going to run into that kind of reaction.

Itou: If you were to make a game like that now, you'd probably have to frame it as being a "Professor of Natural History" or something, like you get a degree based on how many insects you've researched. Otherwise, I don't think people would bother.

Itoi: But look at someone like Hiroshi Aramata. You think he's obsessively pursuing one thing, and then suddenly, "BAM!" something from a completely different world pops out. It's like a "Meanwhile, elsewhere…" moment, but you can tell it's all connected in his head. The most interesting thing would be if everyone could become like Hiroshi Aramata. He digs deep into a subject with this incredible Mannerist intensity, but then he'll serve you a completely different "dish" in a totally unexpected context. I think that kind of intellectual play is perfectly suited for computers.

Miyamoto: That's why I think it's about time we stopped thinking of these as "games" at all. "Games" are just what's popular right now, so they draw all the attention. But if you just think of it as having a computer and a television, that's enough. We shouldn't be comparing things to Tetris or RPGs and worrying about which one "wins." It's not that kind of world.

Itou: It's amazing when you think of a game that isn't a game. A game that breaks free from being a game…

Miyamoto: For instance, if we had online communication where data limits weren't an issue and every household was connected, you could do something great with a racing game. You’d register your entry, and the system would tell you, "Your race is scheduled for such-and-such date and time next week." Then you just wait at home.

First, there'd be a qualifying round where maybe 50 cars all tear across the track together, and you'd see the results. Then, for the main event, the top 26 players from across the country would race. You'd find yourself saying things like, "Man, I can't believe I lost to this guy!" and you'd end up making new friends. From there, you could coordinate with those friends to set up your own races, saying things like, "Hey, you better show up for the Kanto Regionals next month!" (laughs)

Itou: "Just you wait!" (laughs)

Miyamoto: Doing it that way makes the actual playing experience more compact. And while it has the outer form of a game, it wouldn't really be a "game" anymore, but a new way to play using a computer.

Itoi: Now you're making me excited about it.

Miyamoto: I think it would be great to try something like that in an arcade, too.

Itoi: Arcades would be great for that. You could set up booths and all.

Miyamoto: There are like 1,000 game centers nationwide, right? It'd be like, "Who's that guy at Stardust in Hokkaido? I wanna see this guy's face!" It'd be fun like that. (laughs)

Itoi: There was something like that in No Life King too, right? With the guy from Hokkaido.

Itou: Ah, right.

Miyamoto: Yeah. I think things become a lot more interesting once we stop calling them games and start seeing them as entertainment. On the other hand, you could say that a great movie or a great book is a "game," too... but they are passive, whereas the computer alone is interactive. So, within the wider world of entertainment, you have this specific category of interactive entertainment, and video games are just one part of that.

Itoi: Right.

Miyamoto: When pornography escalates, it eventually crosses into the grotesque. I think the world of "hidden secrets" in games has almost reached that same grotesque level. It's reached a point where it isn't measured by common sense anymore. It's just people getting bored and looking for stronger and stronger stimulation. We've hit a wall. When you're at the point where you have no choice but to go "grotesque," you have to start thinking of new ways to use the medium.

Itou: In a healthy way.

Miyamoto: Well, as long as there are people willing to play, and we keep on creating, new things will continue to emerge. If there aren't any good games out there, I don't think you should feel the need to go out of your way to find one. As long as you have a computer and a TV at home, you can always come back whenever something truly great finally comes along. So I'm not going to tell people they have to stay with us forever… though I suppose that sounds a bit arrogant, doesn't it? (laughs) Well, anyway, that's just how I see it.

—Either way, there's still a million Famicoms being switched on every single day.

Miyamoto: True. And as long as there are people out there who will buy books like this one, I think we still have plenty to look forward to. (laughs)

Itou: I couldn't agree more! (laughs)

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