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Iwata Laughs: 4gamer.net interview with Iwata (JP only! Translations welcome!)

TheMoon

TheMoon

Member
We've known Iwata Asks wasn't canceled. Miyamoto said it was on some sort of a break in the last investor Q&A before Iwata returned.
 
K

krizzx

Junior Member
CheesecakeRecipe said:
I am super super tired right now and there's some parts I can't make out (or might not have 100% accurate) since I'm still learning a lot, but here's your snippet:



Iwata: In my years as a student in high school and college, I would make games on a Hewlett-Packard HP-67 calculator.

*Programmable pocket calculator sold in 1976. Programs were stored on a magnetic card.

Mr. Kawakami: What sort of CPU was in that?

Iwata: That information was never published, so I can't say for sure what CPU was in there. It was very crude and primitive, not really made for computers (?). However, thanks to the ease with which it could handle Indirect Addressing and Data Entry Flagging, I was able to make games in the middle of class and show it to my friend who sat next to me.

Mr. Kawakami: You're truly a natural programmer!

Iwata: The manual wasn't very easy to understand, it read as though it had been directly (roughly) translated from English. But in those days (some stuff I can't understand) Back then, I considered myself the 'number one master' of calculators in Japan! (Laughs)

Everybody: (Laughs)

Iwata: Back then, I made a Star-Trek themed game by myself. I managed to get over the calculator's restriction of only allowing 224 steps per program by using 6 different magnetic cards. It was a masterpiece of calculator programming! The people at Hewlett Packard's Japanese Agency were really surprised. It was a ton of data to send. By that point, I was no longer worried about the HP-67's documentation.
Click to expand...

This is why he is the best man for the job.
 
@

@MUWANdo

Banned
I've said this in other threads, but I really think they should try rebooting Iwata Asks as a video series: same interview format, same style of questioning, just present it as a video people can watch or listen to in the background instead of forcing people to commit to reading a wall of text. They could show a preview for each Nintendo Direct and then link to the full interview at the end or something, I don't know.
 
S

spyroflame0487

Member
@MUWANdo said:
I've said this in other threads, but I really think they should try rebooting Iwata Asks as a video series: same interview format, same style of questioning, just present it as a video people can watch or listen to in the background instead of forcing people to commit to reading a wall of text. They could show a preview for each Nintendo Direct and then link to the full interview at the end or something, I don't know.
Click to expand...

I think that'd be great for them to have on a "Treehouse" channel. They can stick the Nintendo Minute, Treehouse Livestreams and other internal Nintendo things onto a separate channel that deals specifically with a behind the scenes look at games. Then the main Nintendo channel can continue having trailers and first looks/Directs on it.
 
S

StreetsAhead

Member
Iwata: So, I have this strange sense of duty regarding the codifying of the 'Miyamoto Methodology', because I feel like it would be useful to the game industry if you could put it into words. I started up a project similar to 'Iwata Asks' for that purpose. And, of course, wanted to see it put into words so I could understand it too, because back when I was just starting out, I sort of arbitrarily decided that Miyamoto was my rival, though that's embarrassing to admit now.

Kawakami: Your rival? Mr. Miyamoto?

Iwata: Yes. Would you believe that for a long time I'd just decided within myself, completely arbitrarily and not at all reciprocated, that he was my rival and I wanted to do something to just give him hell.

Kawakami: Well fair enough, but in the end did you ever manage to give him hell?

Iwata: Umm, well, maybe a little (wry laugh)

All: (Laughs)

Iwata: Miyamoto is, as you'd expect, an amazing person and without a doubt posseses a methodology that I don't have. And I always felt it was a waste that it wasn't verbalized.

Kawakami: It caused a buzz online, but Mr. Miyamoto's definition of a good idea* is quite remarkable.

*"A good idea is something that does not solve just one single problem, but rather can solve multiple problems at once."

Iwata: Yes, that one's great. I thought 'Yes, that's a great quote! It'll be popular with people', so I went and spread it around as much as I could and it's become quite well known (laughs).

Kawakami: Yes, it has. It's like, to put it another way, realizing that killing two birds with one stone was about ideas too! (laughs)

Iwata: Yes. It's the perspective that solving multiple problems with one solution is what an idea is.

Kawakami: But when people say 'I got it!' or 'That's it!', it's usually like that. So, I think from a cognitive point of view, it's the correct definition.

Iwata: It's probably the same as the 'A-ha!' moment that they talk about in neuroscience. Things that, at first glance, didn't appear connected actually are and you can say 'if I just do this to this thing and that thing, I can solve all these problems in one go and everything will work beautifully.' That's the 'I got it!' moment.

Kawakami: Yes.

Iwata: Miyamoto also says that when a problem just can't be solved no matter what, someone is lying.

4Gamer: Lying?

Iwata: Yes. He doesn't mean lying in a bad way, but that the person's thought-process is mistaken, or they're looking at the problem the wrong way.
Miyamoto is like, how do I put this, he's a genius at creating perception changes. Explaining the value of changing one's perception in an easily understood manner makes people happy, so it's a very interesting skill (laughs).
Click to expand...

Alright, taking a breakfast break haha.
 
N

Nanashrew

Banned
Iwata giving Miyamoto hell.

B50XTFFIEAI0sC7.jpg:large


I can see it happening!
 
@

@MUWANdo

Banned
Altazor said:
Oh man, Iwata believing Miyamoto to be his rival, that's amazing :lol
Click to expand...

He's mentioned in other interviews that he'd systematically analyse Miyamoto's games and try to one-up them with game he worked on like Kirby, but Miyamoto's were always way more fun and more successful, even though Iwata thought his own games were objectively better; like, "our games look better, they're better programmed, the characters are cuter, they're more accessible, so they should surely also be more popular?!"

After a while, he began to pick up on Miyamoto's methodologies--the way he's able to consider games from a micro and macro perspective, his problem-solving processes, etc--and that's when he stopped thinking of Miyamoto as a "rival" and started thinking of himself as a "professor of Miyamoto studies".
 
S

StreetsAhead

Member
Talking about story and modern games:
Iwata: So [modern games] are backed by this huge amount of effort and technology, but it feels like very few people remember them [story moments] or players skip over things within the game.

Kawakami: It certainly feels like there's too many cut-scenes these days.

Iwata: Of course, you can use them effectively; I'm not trying to dismiss them completely, but I can't help but wonder what could have been instead done with the energy [time, money, resources] that went into them. Miyamoto has never used many cut-scenes, in his games, but recently I think he has begun to think the same way, too.
Click to expand...

On the internet:
Iwata: The internet makes a variety of things transparent and allows information to be shared quickly. Therefore, in a way, you can no longer hand-wave stuff as you once could, but on the other hand it's created a platform for a variety of interesting things.
I don't think it's more difficult now [to do business] with the internet around. In fact, for certain genres and demographics, the internet is better at spreading information for us than, say, TV is.
For example, we posted a Tweet [on the NCL account] saying that we were remaking The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask and we had over 16,000 retweets within one day. Looking at those numbers, it's hard to feel that the market is becoming more segmented.
Click to expand...

Iwata: Indeed, we see the trend of, as the middle of the market disappears, the big hits only become bigger. For example, there's been four 2 million sellers released on the 3DS [in Japan] in the last five months.
We checked and that's never happened before in the Japanese game market. So, in the middle of people saying 'packaged software doesn't sell anymore' and 'dedicated game consoles are dead', we have this happening.

Kawakami: Just this year, we had Frozen released in Japan and be a huge hit. People are saying no one goes to movie theaters any more and then we have one of the highest grossing movies ever recorded in Japan.

Iwata: It's segmentation and over-concentration. This bipolarity is just a feature of the market in recent years.
The mega hits get bigger, so to speak.
Click to expand...

Alright, taking a break for a while now. That's most of the interesting stuff on page 1, though.
 
A

AdanVC

Member
Thank you very much Cheesecake and Streets for translating this! Super interesting stuff and it's nice to know Iwata Asks could be back someday. There's a ton of awesome Nintendo games coming in 2015 so it'll be perfect to have this section back.

@MUWANdo said:
I've said this in other threads, but I really think they should try rebooting Iwata Asks as a video series: same interview format, same style of questioning, just present it as a video people can watch or listen to in the background instead of forcing people to commit to reading a wall of text. They could show a preview for each Nintendo Direct and then link to the full interview at the end or something, I don't know.
Click to expand...

This is actually a really good idea. They could have not only Iwata but other people from Nintendo doing the Interviews as well, like Reggie, or the guys from the Treehouse.
 
@

@MUWANdo

Banned
AdanVC said:
This is actually a really good idea. They could have not only Iwata but other people from Nintendo doing the Interviews as well, like Reggie, or the guys from the Treehouse.
Click to expand...

It'd really require someone like Iwata who's spent a lot of time as a developer, I think. They did a "Reggie Asks" once and it was terrible.

Sakurai stood in for Iwata for a Fire Emblem interview, I think he'd make a good replacement if Iwata couldn't/didn't want to continue doing it himself.
 
S

Sky Interloper

Member
Thank you for the translations! I just love getting more insight into the inner workings of Nintendo, so interviews like this always get my attention. Possibly we see a return to Iwata Asks by the release of Majora's Mask 3D, and maybe a look back at the biggest games of this year.
 
D

Dragoon En Regalia

Member
Many thanks for translating, Cheesecake and SA!

Assuming they can't get Itoi to interview more often, I think Iwata's healthy enough now that a second Iwata Asks! generation can happen.
 
C

Currygan

at last, for christ's sake
thanks for the translation, brilliant interview!

man, Iwata must really be a master programmer. I want to see his Star Trek game, imagine if they somehow released it as part of a super early Nintendo game collection, lol
 
D

deltatheta

Member
Well, in the end he became Miyamoto's boss, so I guess he came out on top of that rivalry.

Except Miyamoto is on the board now. I guess Iwata just can't win.
 
D

DXB-KNIGHT

Member
I really miss Iwata asks, you rarely find such insight especially from a company that is commonly known for being secretive.
 
S

SalvaPot

Member
You are doing god's work guys, the interview is really interesting!

I find funny that Iwata considered Miyamoto a rival, and know he is pretty much his boss, how times change.
 
P

protomouse

Member
Thanks for translating these! Iwata strikes me as the same kind of guy as John Carmack - someone that could talk for hours on end about various intricacies of game development, and whom I could listen to doing so for hours on end. It's a shame we mostly only get to see him in the context of being Nintendo's CEO. I wonder if he still finds time to get hands on with technology. When you're the kind of person that writes elaborate calculator software in high-school, there's a good chance that the same curiosity and drive to solve problems will be with you throughout your life - because it's part of your personality and not just something you dabble in.
 
D

Dragoon En Regalia

Member
Currygan said:
thanks for the translation, brilliant interview!

man, Iwata must really be a master programmer. I want to see his Star Trek game, imagine if they somehow released it as part of a super early Nintendo game collection, lol
Click to expand...
People continually undervalue the importance of the 1971 Star Trek mainframe game in encouraging novice programmers to develop video games. Quite a few developers, even those in Japan, got hooked on the idea by playing some version of this strategy concept. Other individuals who, like Iwata, first appreciated games through Star Trek are Hironobu Sakaguchi and Kotori Yoshimura (who created Star Fleet in homage to Atari's Star Raiders, itself based on the mainframe game).

I'm sure the magnetic disks for calculator now have mold, water damage, or clogging-by-dust, making them salvageable assuming Iwata's kept 'em around. A shame how many historically-important games are lost or nearly extinct because developers couldn't perceive how valuable the files wouldd be later on.
 
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