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[Fantastical]

Search your feelings, you know it to be true.

Spoiler

Probably isn't true, but I wouldn't doubt it completely.

So do these failed prototype makers get compensated at all?

Again, Nintendo bought the prototype for Super Mario Galaxy according to the rumor, so yes. Pikmin reportedly came from a Nintendo project but not Miyamoto himself. So yes in the fact that Nintendo paid them to do a job.

EDIT: Beateded.

 

[TunaLover]

Probably just some NOE employee who is still fuming because NCL doesnt give NOE or NOA info until they have too

And he is french too, what a coincidence!

 

[BurntPork]

It doesn't make it untrue.

Every company has their dark secrets. Nintendo shouldn't just let this stuff go through, though. All it's going to take is one thing he says to be proven, and Nintendo's reputation is permanently destroyed.

 

[Rhod]

Wii Music is the jazzy brainchild of Totaka-san, no? Or he was drafted in to direct it, at least.

Totaka-san also has a real-world jazz band! It's possible he didn't invent Jazz or musical instruments himself, but got the idea elsewhere before building a toy around it.

 

[Boney]

I'm not sure how this news, if true, would put Miyamoto in the position of having "lied". If a developer says "I came up with the idea for Fruit Ninja when I was shopping in the supermarket and saw an evil looking kiwi", it doesn't mean that nothing else ever came to be a part of the idea during the germination.

Let's say they had an unfinished RTS game sitting around and revamped it to make Pikmin. That's totally compatible with Miyamoto sitting in his garden and saying "Hey I want little radish head dudes that you can control and have work together. Oh, some of the stuff from that Bones of Blood: The 10000 Year War prototype would be go with this. And I really like the whole Commander Keen kid-pretending-to-be-a-space-captain thing, so let's incorporate that into the main character's design." Ta-da. Circle squared.

I think there's a big difference between sort of aggregating or simplifying things to give reasonable answers to questions, versus explicitly stealing credit, and even the article in the OP doesn't propose that Nintendo did the latter.

It's weird, cause it implies both that Nintendo isn't a capable game studio of creating something like Galaxy and "tweaked a thing or two". But at the same time argues about the well documented idea of Nintendo having a huge treasure chest of prototype ideas that aren't ready to used so they are shelved. That part was on Steel Diver's Iwata asks right?

I mean, one thing is like what Shiggy is saying, that they pitched the gravity stuff and Nintendo ran with it, and the other is saying they just copypasted Mario in the game.

 

[Poyunch]

Tomorrow 01net reveals that the employees of Nintendo were murdered and replaced by monsters prior to the success of the DS and Wii. The success of said consoles were due to the occult, according to external sources.

 

[hardcastlemccormick]

Every company has their dark secrets. Nintendo shouldn't just let this stuff go through, though. All it's going to take is one thing he says to be proven, and Nintendo's reputation is permanently destroyed.

How does this destroy Nintendo's reputation?

 

[[Nintex]]

Here's the Visor bit I talked about:

First we get Wikan who had a really nice story to tell:
http://uk.wii.ign.com/articles/101/1016511p3.html

"Mr. Miyamoto said, 'Well, what if Samus could take off her head and maybe put a head on that had bug eyes? Or a head that saw in the dark or whatever. Just switch heads.' We came out of the meeting -- this was very early on; I want to say it was a month or two of us getting the franchise -- and went back into our office and were like, bug eyes?" explains Wikan, laughing. "We drew pictures on the wall of Samus' helmet and then Samus with a bug head and just stared at it, thinking, surely he can't mean that he wants Samus to switch heads and put on a bug head."

Eventually, Retro's designers realized that Miyamoto was simply asking if there was a way for the developer to make Samus perceive the world she explores in different ways -- as, for example, a bug might. "And by looking at it in that way, we started realizing, well, you perceive things with sound and with light and with all these different ways of holistically experiencing the world. And that was really kind of the origin of how the whole visor system grew. But we had no idea at first about what he was talking about. It was a very fun experience," he adds, giggling.

Then Matt receives an email the following day:
http://uk.wii.ign.com/articles/101/1016511p5.html

Incidentally, since the first half of this feature posted, reps for Spangenberg contacted me to dispute some details of the piece, including the origin of Aran's visor system in Prime, which they claim was not at all conceptualized after a comment about bug eyes from Shigeru Miyamoto, but rather the brainchild of a single Retro employee.

Now this was utterly bizarre. For starters because Spangenberg had said nothing about Retro Studios whatsoever ever since he left. So why would he out of the blue comment on a such an article and try to set things straight about who came up with something like the visor system? On the other hand why and how would Wikan make up such an elaborate story about how the visor system came to be?

 

[Shikamaru Ninja]

People do realize that Super Mario Galaxy is probably composed of various prototypes and previously successful engines. Having the claim of an externally conceived concept, does not change that it still uses internally built EAD technology seen in Wave Race 64, Super Mario Sunshine, Roll-O-Rama and Mario 128.

 

[CoffeeJanitor]

Both Pikmin and Super Mario Galaxy come from SEVERAL prototypes developed at EAD Technology Development Department. Which is a separate division from the EAD Software Development Department. The roots of the technology origins and development environments can be traced to the Mario 128 demo (tech was reused in Mario and Pikmin), Roll-O-Rama (tech was reused in Super Mario Galaxy), and Super Mario Sunshine (tech was reused in Super Mario Galaxy).

There is an absolute possibility that a programmer witnessed another technology and emulated to some degree. But that is impossible to prove.

Listen to this guy. He is like the prophet of Nintendo facts.

The man.

 

[Rhod]

So do these failed prototype makers get compensated at all?

I'm not a manager so I have no idea, but let's presume that the chance to get one of these games become a full project on Nintendo's dime is often a risk worth taking.

 

[DownWithTheShip]

How do I get a job as a "source"?

I've got a lot of BS ideas that are plausible

 

[Stumpokapow]

It's a lie of omission. To use the Apple analogy, if Steve Jobs got up and said, "check out the Apple OS, featuring a UI I saw in a dream" (or whatever), and didn't credit the idea to Xerox at all. It's misleading, and to me it seems like simplifying for the express purpose to mislead.

I think you're kind of stretching here, because it's absolutely no trouble at all to integrate everything Nintendo has ever said about either Pikmin or SMG with everything this article is saying about both of them, have all of it be true, have no one be claiming undue credit. I think you might be projecting Nintendo and Miyamoto specifically to claiming more credit than they do. Miyamoto simply hasn't and has never made definitive "It was all my idea!" type statements. Even the unusually-in-depth Iwata Asks interviews tend to be very high level overviews of the game's development process, such that--no, I don't even view it as a lie of omission that they have or haven't mentioned any individual evolutionary prototype that got incorporated into the final product in some regard at some stage.

 

[Jackano]

Still two days left with this bullshit. Please, buy Audureau's book and/or click 01net ads and let's finish this.

 

[Emitan]

How do I get a job as a "source"?

I've got a lot of BS ideas that are plausible

Whisper into Pachter's ear at night.

 

[IAmtheFMan]

According to our source, this is typical of Nintendo’s longtime M.O. Let’s not forget that the sublime Super Mario Bros. 2 (Super Mario USA), although designed by Miyamoto, was originally a totally independent title, Yume Kôjô Doki Doki Panic, released in 1987 for the Famicom Disk System.

Why do bloggers and so-called gaming journalists obsess over this like it's some sort of Watergate-esque conspiracy that was uncovered by the gaming press? Nintendo's been really open about it for like forever, and considering the market differences back then, was a smart move too.

The Doki Doki/U.S SMB2 switcheroo is nothing more then a little piece of gaming history trivia.

 

[Lord_Byron28]

I mean, one thing is like what Shiggy is saying, that they pitched the gravity stuff and Nintendo ran with it, and the other is saying they just copypasted Mario in the game.

What shiggy says, I've said and many others have said I can agree with Nintendo buying an external prototype that is of interest(like Gravity) but to claim SMG was a prototype and they pasted Mario into it is ridiculous and I don't believe that.

 

[Stumpokapow]

Now this was utterly bizarre. For starters because Spangenberg had said nothing about Retro Studios whatsoever ever since he left. So why would he out of the blue comment on a such an article and try to set things straight about who came up with something like the visor system? On the other hand why and how would Wikan make up such an elaborate story about how the visor system came to be?

Or you can square both stories trivially by just assuming good faith on the part of both stories.

Wikan remembers Miyamoto pitching some idea about bug eyes or a switched head, which is a very very high level general idea. Maybe they already had an idea for a visor system and Miyamoto's feedback led to it being a bigger deal in the production or caused them to re-examine it. Simultaneous invention by two people is not uncommon in the games industry. Or, maybe they didn't have the system and an employee subsequently pitched a system based on Miyamoto's idea and Spangenberg wasn't privy to or in the room when Miyamoto made the two-line idea pitch. Or maybe Wikan remembers wrong and that's not what Miyamoto pitched and he's thinking of another system. That's three possible ways that neither party is lying.

Only someone who starts with the assumption that someone is lying needs to end with the conclusion that someone is lying here, or there.

 

[TunaLover]

Anyway, this quote is interesting:

According to our source, Nintendo is in possession of a gigantic treasure trove unlike any other, so far largely unexploited. This unique policy of colossal investments into game prototypes and game design concepts has to be fully put to use.

Nothing really new, we all knew that Nintendo has alot of prototypes lying around, it could be interesting to know what other crazy ideas has Nintendo under the hood, though.

 

[Boney]

Or you can square both stories trivially by just assuming good faith on the part of both stories.

Wikan remembers Miyamoto pitching some idea about bug eyes or a switched head, which is a very very high level general idea. Maybe they already had an idea for a visor system and Miyamoto's feedback led to it being a bigger deal in the production or caused them to re-examine it. Simultaneous invention by two people is not uncommon in the games industry. Or, maybe they didn't have the system and an employee subsequently pitched a system based on Miyamoto's idea and Spangenberg wasn't privy to or in the room when Miyamoto made the two-line idea pitch. Or maybe Wikan remembers wrong and that's not what Miyamoto pitched and he's thinking of another system. That's three possible ways that neither party is lying.

Only someone who starts with the assumption that someone is lying needs to end with the conclusion that someone is lying here, or there.

Sounds like a Layton explanation of a logic puzzle.

 

[Futureman]

Why couldn't Miyamoto have just given the RTS its 'life' when observing his garden and finding the theme meshed well with that control concept he saw years before? That'd still mean that the idea evolved greatly thanks to Miyamoto's input.

This is exactly what I thought while reading this. It's pretty much disingenuous to claim that Nintendo fabricated Miyamoto coming up w/ the idea.

This site is obviously digging for hits and it seems to be working.

 

[Emitan]

Sounds like a Layton explanation of a logic puzzle.

How do I use my hint coins to figure out the answer?

 

[Trojita]

Damn, it just kind of sucks to make some breakthrough gameplay concept, sell it for cheap, and then see your idea get used in a multi-million dollar game. I guess that's the industry though ie it is their fault they sold it. Do they even get a credit in the credits?

 

[Smellycat]

What shiggy says, I've said and many others have said I can agree with Nintendo buying an external prototype that is of interest(like Gravity) but to claim SMG was a prototype and they pasted Mario into it is ridiculous and I don't believe that.

I have no problem with the idea that SMG was a prototype, but to say that all Nintendo did was add mario and friends in it is just LOL worthy.

That must have been the best prototype ever.

 

[dairladada]

If he would have worked with Nintendo, he would know that even the notion of Game Design doesn't exist there. They prototype better than anyone else, are gods at 3Cs (Controls, Cameras, Character), try to solve problems (Run around a sphere and you don't get lost in a 3D environment) and so on.
And by the way, if you do games, you know ideas are cheap. It's all about prototyping and keeping it good during production.
Clearly this person has no idea of who Nintendo really is. Sad sad sad.

 

[BurntPork]

How does this destroy Nintendo's reputation?

The way the article is worded makes it seem like SMG was actually entirely someone else's work. If Miyamoto is marked as a plagiarist, it could be devastating.

That said, the 3DS rumor is far worse. Chances are that that one is true and the analog stick add-on will be announced alongside MH3G at the 3DS event. That'll cause people to believe that a revision with the stick built-in is on the way in a few months (even though it's most likely still a year away), and current owners will feel betrayed, even if they give the dongle for free. Some may swear off Nintendo hardware for good.

 

[Fantastical]

It's a lie of omission. To use the Apple analogy, if Steve Jobs got up and said, "check out the Apple OS, featuring a UI I saw in a dream" (or whatever), and didn't credit the idea to Xerox at all. It's misleading, and to me it seems like simplifying for the express purpose to mislead.

(Can you tell I watched an Apple/MS documentary on YouTube today?)

Miyamoto simply said that he got the idea from his garden, which I would think actually fits with the rumor quite well in that the prototype was there and Miyamoto took it to the next step by incorporating his own ideas. I don't think it's really leaving out details because he didn't include the fact that he adapted an RTS prototype...

Also where the hell is that quote from Miyamoto about Pikmin? It's harder than I thought to find.

How does this destroy Nintendo's reputation?

I don't think it "destroys" their reputation, but people (including myself) have already misunderstood exactly what the article is talking about. People have already pointed to the Ape Escape and Ratchet and Clank stuff when this particular rumor isn't validating that.

 

[Emitan]

Damn, it just kind of sucks to make some breakthrough gameplay concept, sell it for cheap, and then see your idea get used in a multi-million dollar game. I guess that's the industry though ie it is their fault they sold it. Do they even get a credit in the credits?

Might have been in their contract that they don't get credit if it's used. Assuming they weren't credited, of course.

 

[hardcastlemccormick]

The way the article is worded makes it seem like SMG was actually entirely someone else's work. If Miyamoto is marked as a plagiarist, it could be devastating.

That said, the 3DS rumor is far worse. Chances are that that one is true and the analog stick add-on will be announced alongside MH3G at the 3DS event. That'll cause people to believe that a revision with the stick built-in is on the way in a few months (even though it's most likely still a year away), and current owners will feel betrayed, even if they give the dongle for free. Some may swear off Nintendo hardware for good.

Not enough people will hear about this for Nintendo to give a shit. We'll forget about these rumors in two weeks. They'd probably lose more money in a legal battle, drawing attention to the issue, than otherwise, because then Nintendo is actually giving them a spotlight.

And anyone who gives up Nintendo products over rumors like this would have been pushed over the edge by something else anyway.

These rumors are irrelevant to Nintendo.

 

[drspeedy]

How do I use my hint coins to figure out the answer?

I think you need the purple comet to appear before you can collect these particular hint coins [/mixed gaming references]

 

[Stumpokapow]

Sounds like a Layton explanation of a logic puzzle.

If it was a Layton explanation of a logic puzzle, I'd have said that (end-game layton spoilers)

Spoiler

"Wikan" is actually Miyamoto in a costume pretending to be Wikan, Spangenberg was high on invisible toxic gas and hallucinating everything, Retro Studios is in a fake parallel Austin, Texas, etc

(end-game spoilers for all three US-released Layton games). And then I'd have punched myself in the face.

 

[DaSorcerer7]

The way the article is worded makes it seem like SMG was actually entirely someone else's work. If Miyamoto is marked as a plagiarist, it could be devastating.

That said, the 3DS rumor is far worse. Chances are that that one is true and the analog stick add-on will be announced alongside MH3G at the 3DS event. That'll cause people to believe that a revision with the stick built-in is on the way in a few months (even though it's most likely still a year away), and current owners will feel betrayed, even if they give the dongle for free. Some may swear off Nintendo hardware for good.

I think you're seriously overestimating the impact of this article.

 

[MisterHero]

People do realize that Super Mario Galaxy is probably composed of various prototypes and previously successful engines. Having the claim of an externally conceived concept, does not change that it still uses internally built EAD technology seen in Wave Race 64, Super Mario Sunshine, Roll-O-Rama and Mario 128.

I might be wrong but didn't they say that the developers asked different Nintendo employees what kind of stage mechanics like to see in SMG2? Or did that only apply to stages rather than mechanics?

 

[Rocket Punch]

All I know is that when I play Super Mario Galaxy I know the mind of God in all Its divinity and splendor.

 

[Smellycat]

Damn, it just kind of sucks to make some breakthrough gameplay concept, sell it for cheap, and then see your idea get used in a multi-million dollar game. I guess that's the industry though ie it is their fault they sold it. Do they even get a credit in the credits?

I highly doubt it. Nintendo (and other companies) buy these ideas, and they fully own them.

But as Rhod said, Nintendo also hires people to work on an idea that Nintendo itself thought of. And then Nintendo keeps the work and improves it.

 

[walking fiend]

The way the article is worded makes it seem like SMG was actually entirely someone else's work. If Miyamoto is marked as a plagiarist, it could be devastating

and instead of finding a publisher and making a lot of money and reputation for the whole game, they just anonymously sold it to Nintendo?

 

[dairladada]

Ideas are worth nothing. Everyone has ideas. Everyone is a game designer. That's not what games are made of. You can't patent an idea. It has to be implemented. Implementation is everything. Wake up.

 

[les papillons sexuels]

Damn, it just kind of sucks to make some breakthrough gameplay concept, sell it for cheap, and then see your idea get used in a multi-million dollar game. I guess that's the industry though ie it is their fault they sold it. Do they even get a credit in the credits?

I think half of the money that the games make come from nintendo adding mario to the name imo. Most of the games like mario galaxy if released by some independant 3rd party publisher would have probably recieved mixed reviews and barely any attention.

 

[Prime Blue]

Again, while Doki Doki Panic didn't originally have the Mario brand, it was very much in-house, Miyamoto spent more time on it than he did on TLL, Tanabe went on to direct major critical Nintendo in-house games. It's very much in-house.

Actually, Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic and Super Mario Bros. 2 were the works of Kensuke Tanabe. Shigeru Miyamoto designed Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels. Don't know where that stupid assumption comes from that Miyamoto didn't do the Japanese SMB2 but the Western.

 

[Boney]

If it was a Layton explanation of a logic puzzle, I'd have said that

Spoiler

"Wikan" is actually Miyamoto in a costume pretending to be Wikan, Spangenberg was high on invisible toxic gas and hallucinating everything, Retro Studios is in a fake parallel Austin, Texas, etc

(end-game spoilers for all three US-released Layton games). And then I'd have punched myself in the face.

But that's the overall mistery! Not a single puzzle! Hilarious stuff

 

[Graphics Horse]

It also doesn't make it a big deal. What have we learned from this website so far?

1. Nintendo works on tons of handhelds and handheld options (some unreleased)
2. Nintendo sometimes has issues to work out before consoles are released
3. Nintendo sometimes uses external ideas in their games, because for some reason they live in the same reality we do and aren't isolated from the world around them (and third party prototypes as well)

The rumors appear to be a big deal, but once you think about the implication, all of them are pretty obvious.

Sums it up so far. Who knows what revelations are to follow!

 

[walking fiend]

I think half of the money that the games make come from nintendo adding mario to the name imo. Most of the games like mario galaxy if released by some independant 3rd party publisher would have probably recieved mixed reviews and barely any attention.

lol.

 

[Fantastical]

I think half of the money that the games make come from nintendo adding mario to the name imo. Most of the games like mario galaxy if released by some independant 3rd party publisher would have probably recieved mixed reviews and barely any attention.

Ruh-roh.

shit, almost uncovered those spoilers before i read the end of stumps post.

Me too! Close one! I'm almost at the end of Diabolical Box.

 

[Gravijah]

shit, almost uncovered those spoilers before i read the end of stumps post.

 

[Boney]

At GDC '09

He observes people everywhere having fun. He thinks about how the core of that fun might come into games. But even as one project starts, he is still observing other people having fun – more ideas are born. Most developers prepare a thick design document to explain their intension to their teams. Mr. Miyamoto almost never writes one.

His first goal is always the same – a [prototype,] very limited and very clear. The amount of time being spent on the game’s appearance is zero.

Mr Miyamoto always has multiple projects in this stage at the same time.

What I find most important is how in each phase of overall development, he can clearly distinguish which details must be perfectly finished in that phase, and separate them from the parts that can be tentatively prepared.

shit, almost uncovered those spoilers before i read the end of stumps post.

If you read that you'll definately never play a Layton game.

 

[Lord_Byron28]

Now this was utterly bizarre. For starters because Spangenberg had said nothing about Retro Studios whatsoever ever since he left. So why would he out of the blue comment on a such an article and try to set things straight about who came up with something like the visor system? On the other hand why and how would Wikan make up such an elaborate story about how the visor system came to be?

Stump phrased this much better than I did. However, also think about it this way. What benefit would Wikan have to coming up with a convoluted, vague story? I highly doubt Nintendo/Iwata predicted that IGN or any other game journalist would ask about the visor system and told Wikan to make up a story about Miyamoto coming up with the visor system.

 

[IchigoSharingan]

The videogame industry after everyone clocks out at work: an eternal sonata of "it was my idea~"

 

[Emitan]

If it was a Layton explanation of a logic puzzle, I'd have said that

Spoiler

"Wikan" is actually Miyamoto in a costume pretending to be Wikan, Spangenberg was high on invisible toxic gas and hallucinating everything, Retro Studios is in a fake parallel Austin, Texas, etc

(end-game spoilers for all three US-released Layton games). And then I'd have punched myself in the face.

I don't know if those spoilers make me want to play those games or not. WTF

 

[MYE]

Tomorrow 01net reveals that the employees of Nintendo were murdered and replaced by monsters prior to the success of the DS and Wii. The success of said consoles were due to the occult, according to external sources.

whoa

Thats giving them too much credit.

These body snatching monsters clearly stole the recipies of success from the vaults of a thousand virgin maidens. I hear they test their body impact animations on babies too.

 

[[Nintex]]

Stump phrased this much better than I did. However, also think about it this way. What benefit would Wikan have to coming up with a convoluted, vague story? I highly doubt Nintendo/Iwata predicted that IGN or any other game journalist would ask about the visor system and told Wikan to make up a story about Miyamoto coming up with the visor system.

Or you can square both stories trivially by just assuming good faith on the part of both stories.

Wikan remembers Miyamoto pitching some idea about bug eyes or a switched head, which is a very very high level general idea. Maybe they already had an idea for a visor system and Miyamoto's feedback led to it being a bigger deal in the production or caused them to re-examine it. Simultaneous invention by two people is not uncommon in the games industry. Or, maybe they didn't have the system and an employee subsequently pitched a system based on Miyamoto's idea and Spangenberg wasn't privy to or in the room when Miyamoto made the two-line idea pitch. Or maybe Wikan remembers wrong and that's not what Miyamoto pitched and he's thinking of another system. That's three possible ways that neither party is lying.

Only someone who starts with the assumption that someone is lying needs to end with the conclusion that someone is lying here, or there.

That could indeed be true but for me the weird part is hardly the story of who made what, the strangest thing is that Spangenberg commented at all because his named hadn't popped up for years. Maybe he was asked as a source for additional information so this piece was interesting for him but then again Matt and others wrote the most in depth articles about Prime over the years. The 'Art of Prime' by N-Sider was certainly a nice piece and Spangenberg never bothered to respond to or comment on anything Retro Studios related after he left except for this article.