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Larry Bundy Jr: 4 Times Shigeru Miyamoto Was an Asshole

The Croc thing is interesting, but deceptive. Yoshi Racing was a pitch made for a 3d character racing game (this is after Stunt Race), probably around 95. The version I saw had Yoshi running and maybe jumping (it's been a while) along a canyon. This is the same time frame as the SF2 cancellation, which marks the end of Argonauts working relationship with Nintendo.

HOWEVER, 3d platform games, and how to make them, were not uncommon discussions. 3d hardware was starting to reach consumer grade, and Argonaut had been on the cutting edge of that with the FX chip, and Jez knew the Nintendo people, and loved talking about those sorts of things. SO It's entirely possible that he inspired Miyamoto to make a 3d Mario.

OR Miyamoto might have told him that to soften the blow of cutting off a rather lucrative revenue stream.

[edit] at least this is my recollection of events over 20 years in the past. The 95 date is pretty solid though.
 

LordRaptor

Member
But my favorite salty Miyamoto moments have less to do with actual development, and more to do with him saying "I could've made Halo" and saying the same for Minecraft. Like what does that even mean? You could've made something that wasn't made but didn't because but you totally would have?

He said that Nintendo had experimented with mechanics similar to Minecraft but couldn't turn it into an actual game.

That is the literal opposite of dissing Minecraft; it is complimenting the fact that Notch could make a game out of those mechanics.

HOWEVER, 3d platform games, and how to make them, were not uncommon discussions. 3d hardware was starting to reach consumer grade, and Argonaut had been on the cutting edge of that with the FX chip, and Jez knew the Nintendo people, and loved talking about those sorts of things. SO It's entirely possible that he inspired Miyamoto to make a 3d Mario.

OR Miyamoto might have told him that to soften the blow of cutting off a rather lucrative revenue stream.

The dawn of the 3D era saw a lot of 2D mechanics reimplemented into 3D - Croc definitively wasn't the first attempt at a 3D platformer, and definitively isn't the winning template that others later followed.

I mean, its just as likely Nintendo arrived at "platform game in 3D" entirely independently as not, regardless of what ideas were bounced around with who.

"Ideas" mean jack shit.
 

Steiner

Banned
The most successful creators are typically obsessively dedicated to their creative vision, and very hostile toward barriers and compromises. See Steve Jobs.
 

OmegaFax

Member
There was a lawsuit against Nintendo back in the early 80s over the original arcade Donkey Kong's source code that was eventually settled out of court. Miyamoto was the designer but Ikegami Tsushinki wrote the code. The story goes that when Nintendo started developing Donkey Kong Jr., Tsushinki-san sued because they used his code without his involvement to produce it.

Is that true? Whatever happened with that?
 

TS-08

Member
The Croc thing is interesting, but deceptive. Yoshi Racing was a pitch made for a 3d character racing game (this is after Stunt Race), probably around 95. The version I saw had Yoshi running and maybe jumping (it's been a while) along a canyon. This is the same time frame as the SF2 cancellation, which marks the end of Argonauts working relationship with Nintendo.

HOWEVER, 3d platform games, and how to make them, were not uncommon discussions. 3d hardware was starting to reach consumer grade, and Argonaut had been on the cutting edge of that with the FX chip, and Jez knew the Nintendo people, and loved talking about those sorts of things. SO It's entirely possible that he inspired Miyamoto to make a 3d Mario.

OR Miyamoto might have told him that to soften the blow of cutting off a rather lucrative revenue stream.

And additionally, even if it's true that Miyamoto and Co. took some inspiration from what would eventually become Croc, that is still a far cry from "stealing the concept," which is how this video describes it.
 

AstroLad

Hail to the KING baby
Larry's OK in most of his other videos, but claiming "stealing" of code especially, without going into whether the contractual relationship dictated ownership of the reused code is incredibly irresponsible for a fact hunter. If the other company owned all the code, and Nintendo reused it without a license (not "theft" in any event but w/e just one of the many mischaracterizations in the video), then that's a serious issue he should have dug in on rather than throwing out vague but persuasive-sounding attacks about things getting "stolen" and people not getting "properly compensated."
 
And additionally, even if it's true that Miyamoto and Co. took some inspiration from what would eventually become Croc, that is still a far cry from "stealing the concept," which is how this video describes it.
I've not watched the video, but if that's what it's claiming, then it's massively over reaching based on an already tenuous statement.
 
How much of this occurred at Hillary's secret pizza shop? If we're making stuff up, let's go all the way.

I'm not sure if you know but any unsubstantiated accusations against a famous person must be true because his defenders are only defending him because they really like him. What, do you think Miyamoto is perfect???
 
Miyamoto so cheeky! https://twitter.com/intimsworld/status/619490211651801089

As for the whole Rare wanting to get away from Miyamoto by going to Microsoft thing:

Speaking to Develop in a newly published interview, Stamper said that he felt Rare was a good fit to be a first-party developer for Nintendo. But despite having the option, the console giant never took the decision to acquire the famous UK studio.

“I’ve no idea why they didn’t do that,” he said. “I thought we were a good fit.”

http://www.develop-online.net/news/tim-stamper-has-no-idea-why-nintendo-didn-t-buy-rare/0209654
 

higemaru

Member
I think GuruLarry is pretty good and he normally does his research but this video felt like he was grasping at straws. He even admits it in the DMA entry (something that was shitty of Nintendo, but not necessarily Miyamoto, to do). The Argonaut stuff for Star Fox is fair but there were absolutely discussions on how to bring Mario into 3D before Argonaut pitched it. If they had outright taken levels, it'd be a story worth telling but as it stands, nah.

Also, even if the DKC quote were true, I could completely understand why Miyamoto would be pissed. Imagine if you had helped create the company's gaming division and then some hotshots from the UK made some pretty game that was worse than your games but still sold better bc of its graphics and then your bosses told you that you had to change your game to better match Rare's games. If I were Miyamoto, I would be livid. You don't spend years at Nintendo just to be upstaged by some company a continent and a half away.

Miyamoto isn't perfect, I mean look at Paper Mario: Sticker Star, but these incidents aren't worth condemning his legacy over (maybe the Star Fox 2 one)
 

TS-08

Member
I've not watched the video, but if that's what it's claiming, then it's massively over reaching based on an already tenuous statement.

Yep. "Steals the concept for Super Mario 64" is literally the title of the section discussing the connection between the games, and he describes the situation similarly throughout.
 

Ridley327

Member

I imagine that it wasn't anything more complex than Nintendo not being a publisher known for making big acquisitions. A lot of what they deal with are significantly smaller studios than Rare was at its peak back then.

One could and probably should argue that there really wasn't anything but a benefit to Nintendo to go all the way with Rare, but Nintendo was probably not keen on changing the dynamics of their relationship that drastically.
 
This isn't a good video. Not nearly well-researched enough, lots of snide cynicism going on, and plenty of his claims in the video have been debunked before, or cannot be attributed directly to Miyamoto. I'm not that familiar with this guy, only seen one other of his videos that was posted on here, but it was filled with flimsy accusations and wild, unsubstantiated claims as well. Seems like the guy has a clear bias, or is just trying to be negative for shock value.
 
I think GuruLarry is pretty good and he normally does his research but this video felt like he was grasping at straws. He even admits it in the DMA entry (something that was shitty of Nintendo, but not necessarily Miyamoto, to do). The Argonaut stuff for Star Fox is fair but there were absolutely discussions on how to bring Mario into 3D before Argonaut pitched it. If they had outright taken levels, it'd be a story worth telling but as it stands, nah.

Also, even if the DKC quote were true, I could completely understand why Miyamoto would be pissed. Imagine if you had helped create the company's gaming division and then some hotshots from the UK made some pretty game that was worse than your games but still sold better bc of its graphics and then your bosses told you that you had to change your game to better match Rare's games. If I were Miyamoto, I would be livid. You don't spend years at Nintendo just to be upstaged by some company a continent and a half away.

Miyamoto isn't perfect, I mean look at Paper Mario: Sticker Star, but these incidents aren't worth condemning his legacy over (maybe the Star Fox 2 one)

To bold1:

y04FN5N.gif


To bold2:

And if I were Miyamoto, I'd get the signal it's time to meditate on a rock and let go of the ego. That attitude over the decades when it comes to non-Japanese developers is what's put Nintendo in Last Place this gen.

EDIT: Nevermind that apparently Miyamoto being angry over DKC isn't even true to begin with.
 

Debirudog

Member
Regarding Miyamoto's hatred of DKC...

Miyamoto: The first point that I want to make is that I actually worked very closely with Rare on the original Donkey Kong Country. And apparently recently some rumor got out that I didn't really like that game? I just want to clarify that that's not the case, because I was very involved in that. And even emailing almost daily with Tim Stamper right up until the end.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2010/06...to-likes-donkey-kong-country-after-all?page=3
 
The most successful creators are typically obsessively dedicated to their creative vision, and very hostile toward barriers and compromises. See Steve Jobs.

Yeah, I'd imagine it's a little of that, but mostly just other bean counters at the company doing what bean counters do and being greedy fucks to as much of an extent as they can get away with.
 

Celine

Member
The Croc thing is interesting, but deceptive. Yoshi Racing was a pitch made for a 3d character racing game (this is after Stunt Race), probably around 95. The version I saw had Yoshi running and maybe jumping (it's been a while) along a canyon. This is the same time frame as the SF2 cancellation, which marks the end of Argonauts working relationship with Nintendo.

HOWEVER, 3d platform games, and how to make them, were not uncommon discussions. 3d hardware was starting to reach consumer grade, and Argonaut had been on the cutting edge of that with the FX chip, and Jez knew the Nintendo people, and loved talking about those sorts of things. SO It's entirely possible that he inspired Miyamoto to make a 3d Mario.

OR Miyamoto might have told him that to soften the blow of cutting off a rather lucrative revenue stream.

[edit] at least this is my recollection of events over 20 years in the past. The 95 date is pretty solid though.
Thank you for the direct hand recollection.
Apparently Yoshi Racing was planned for the SNES CD.
 

Qwark

Member
Yeah, this was a pretty poor video. Lots of stretching. I do feel bad for Argonaut though, they were really on top of their game with Star Fox and then Nintendo just let them flounder. Business is business, but it's still disappointing.
 

MrBadger

Member
Miyamoto isn't perfect, and he is responsible for turning one of my favourite Nintendo franchises into something I just can't enjoy anymore, but this video gives off the impression that he's making it up as he goes along. Like he has the odd sourced quote, then makes up this entire story surrounding it even if said quote has been debunked in the past. That's how I felt watching the Rare stuff and the Croc/Super Mario 64 thing.
 

wondermega

Member
Haven't played the Rom, but it's not impossible to understand why Star Fox 2 was canned based on what's been said many places. Historically not many Super FX chip games were actually released, and if they were diminishing returns at that point, it's not a big shock that they didn't want to risk weaker sales (esp if yoshi island performed that lackluster). I'm curious what the returns were on stunt race fx? Nintendo can be a notoriously cheap company and if they honestly expected that it would be a loss, and there were other reasons to can it as well, then it's not the biggest surprise.
Big Japanese publishers and western developers have had issues coexisting forever so hearing about what went down with DMA and other studios doesn't sound crazy. When I worked at Left Field productions, they'd recently been released by Nintendo (had their stake sold back to them), this was just as it was happening with Rare during the early 2000s. Left had a positive relationship with Nintendo during N64 but GameCube /PS2 era everything went out of whack (as it always would, each console cycle shift). Money was being spent and work was being done but it was going into a wall, I imagine it happened at many other Western devs and the word was "Nintendo is now going to roll back APP development to Japan." Of course that got relaxed with time, but that seemed to be their reactionary methodology.
On a similar note - Japanese publishers, western developers - the same "wackiness" I'd read about Sega in the 1990s was ever present 15 years later (Sega Japan vs Sega America, and companies/products suffering for it). It's just east vs West business mentality. For some reason Sony has totally bucked the trend, and been able to sustain and lead where their contemporaries have had a tougher go of things, but maybe that's owed to the fact that they weren't primarily a games/toy/amusements operation originally.
 
Hey him being an asshole gave us some damn amazing games. Also fuck Miyamoto for putting his foot in EVERYTHING. There is plenty to show it wasn't always the right choice. Looking at Paper Mario, Star Fox Zero, and the tiny bits of everything over the years.
 

MacTag

Banned
There was a lawsuit against Nintendo back in the early 80s over the original arcade Donkey Kong's source code that was eventually settled out of court. Miyamoto was the designer but Ikegami Tsushinki wrote the code. The story goes that when Nintendo started developing Donkey Kong Jr., Tsushinki-san sued because they used his code without his involvement to produce it.

Is that true? Whatever happened with that?
It's true but Ikegami Tsushinki is a company, not a person. They're still around too.

http://www.ikegami.co.jp/global/index.html

They also coded Radar Scope for Nintendo as well as Congo Bongo and Zaxxon for Sega. Pretty short but significant stint in games.
 

wondermega

Member
It's true but Ikegami Tsushinki is a company, not a person. They're still around too.

http://www.ikegami.co.jp/global/index.html

They also coded Radar Scope for Nintendo as well as Congo Bongo and Zaxxon for Sega. Pretty short but significant stint in games.

I hate this stuff because it's sooooo interesting, but the honest truth of how that kind of game development went down will NEVER come to light. Oh to be a fly on the wall during that period. Ikegami makes television recording equipment for crying out loud.
 
Apparently Yoshi Racing was planned for the SNES CD.
Plausible but unlikely. Argonaut loved new tech, and I'm pretty sure that Yoshi Racing would have been pitched for Project Reality, which Nintendo had announced in 93.

Argonaut did have at least one SNES CD project, a Red & Stimpy licensed game that was heavily cut to fit a cart, and only released to the rental market. SNES work was all but done when I arrived in 94, with only a Scooby Doo game remaining, and that was shoved out of the door (with love) to pay the bills.
 
I don't doubt any of this, some of which I've heard before. Miyamoto's boss and mentor was a ruthless businessman, and Nintendo's lookout on the industry for most of his reign was that Nintendo was the best of the best, and everyone else should bow and feel blessed if they were chosen to work with (read: for) Nintendo.

Having said that:

A. Nintendo was indeed the best of the best (IMO).
B. These are one side of a conflict. No doubt it looks different from the other side.
C. "They stole my idea" would ring a lot more true if Croc was a better game. Also, everyone was trying to make 3D work back then.
 
I don't doubt any of this, some of which I've heard before. Miyamoto's boss and mentor was a ruthless businessman, and Nintendo's lookout on the industry for most of his reign was that Nintendo was the best of the best, and everyone else should bow and feel blessed if they were chosen to work with (read: for) Nintendo.

Having said that:

A. Nintendo was indeed the best of the best (IMO).
B. These are one side of a conflict. No doubt it looks different from the other side.
C. "They stole my idea" would ring a lot more true if Croc was a better game. Also, everyone was trying to make 3D work back then.

Maybe read the thread where most if not all of the things have been debunked numerous things already?
 

TS-08

Member
Cuningas de Häme;227371422 said:
Maybe read the thread where most if not all of the things have been debunked numerous things already?

That poster also goes on to actually express some doubt about the claims in the video.
 

Nanashrew

Banned
re the DKC point: The guy who made the supposed Electronic Games Interview transcripted it in his book The Ultimate History of Video Games: From Pong to Pokemon--The Story Behind the Craze That Touched Our Lives and Changed the World, here's the full thing:



(and only now do I noticed Lary posted it in full in the video description, fucking hell)

As you can see, the context of the quote is seriously odd (why would Miyamoto insult a business partner like that?), which makes me think something was lost in translation, Kent or whoever translated Miyamoto "punched up" the statement or Kent misunderstood friendly ribbing as being 100% serious. Edit I realize this is all opinions and definitely not proof the reporting is fake, though.

For what it's worth, in an interview Retrogamer magazine did with Gregg Mayles (DKC's lead designer) in 2010 had Mayles saying Miyamoto was actually one of the people who approved of DKC when he went to demo it at Nintendo's HQ (it was Gunpei Yokoi who didn't like it)

https://www.nowgamer.com/the-making-of-donkey-kong-country/

The Gunpei thing is new to me :O

I don't find the 'debunking' of the DKC quote by people in this thread particularly convincing. Steven Kent is highly respected, and not one to make up quotes, and an interview, some 15 years later, saying Miyamoto was cool with the graphics doesn't change that fact. He may have been having a bad day, or whatever, but I don't see a reason to doubt him throwing shade when DKCs success was causing him problems, at least internally.

Not to mention these interviews should be taken within the context of the time when they were given. That Naka/Miyamoto one quoted earlier in the thread seems nice, but we have multiple sources that talk about how he pretty much wanted to crush the guy back in the day. Feelings change, and they respect each other now, but it's been over 20 years since Sonic vs Mario was an actual thing.

As for the Mario 64 stuff, that one is a bit odd, though Croc coming out after the fact, or being a worse game doesn't mean that their ideas weren't taken, or what have you. Though I could have sworn I read interviews back in the day that Miyamoto didn't want to show his games too early anymore because games, Croc included, stole ideas from Mario 64 after it was first shown. I'll have to see if I can find that interview, or a refernce to it, but I'm pretty sure I'm not crazy.

Sure. But it even could have easily just as been a mistranslation which are still incredibly common even today. Also I don't even think we have Tim Stamper's side of the story either.

But right now, we do at least have Miyamoto debunking it as well as Mayles.
 
Cuningas de Häme;227371422 said:
Maybe read the thread where most if not all of the things have been debunked numerous things already?

That poster also goes on to actually express some doubt about the claims in the video.

Er, yeah, what I should've said was "I don't doubt there's some truth in these claims". Otherwise I'm just contradicting myself.
 

AntMurda

Member
There was a lawsuit against Nintendo back in the early 80s over the original arcade Donkey Kong's source code that was eventually settled out of court. Miyamoto was the designer but Ikegami Tsushinki wrote the code. The story goes that when Nintendo started developing Donkey Kong Jr., Tsushinki-san sued because they used his code without his involvement to produce it.

Is that true? Whatever happened with that?

It was because Nintendo's programmers reverse engineered Donkey Kong's program (which was subcontracted to Ikegami Tsushinki) to make Donkey Kong Jr. (which was programmed by R&D1 guys).
 

btrboyev

Member
Story is bullshit. If you played Mario 64 and Croc you would know the only thing they have in common is they are both 3D platformers. Croc is a decent game, but it's nowhere near the level of polish in gameplay, design or polish as Mario 64. Mario is almost an entire generation ahead of it in 3D platform king and it came out over a year ahead of croc.

Star Fox 2 being canceled when it was finished is absolutely true, but again, if you played both star fox 2 and 64, it's really hard to see where they stole code from. The games are really different.
 

Oblivion

Fetishing muscular manly men in skintight hosery
Wait, I forgot to ask. What was that crap he was talking about with the racing game? I must have missed something because Super Mario Kart came out in 1992, so it's not like Nintendo needed advice on coming up with a mascot kart racer.
 

Necron

Member
So... Croc: Legend of the Gobbos was in actuality the more innovative title all along? That's incredibly weird and I somewhat feel bad for Argonaut. Seems like they were an incredibly talented studio at the time.

Because I was very young back then and only had the PlayStation, I only got to play Croc instead of the much more raved about Mario64. I remember people bragging about how many stars they had in that game. Nevertheless, Croc was one of the 1st games I owned for the system and I also remember the controls being utterly terrible unfortunately.
 

EmiPrime

Member
I don't like Larry Bundy Jr and this video only cements that. Poorly researched, sensationalist and possibly libellous. I'll stick to Kim Justice for my video game history videos, thanks.
 

Nanashrew

Banned
Wait, I forgot to ask. What was that crap he was talking about with the racing game? I must have missed something because Super Mario Kart came out in 1992, so it's not like Nintendo needed advice on coming up with a mascot kart racer.

Not to mention F-Zero which was a launch title for the SNES. They had 2 well known racing games on the SNES that used mode-7 to give a faux 3D effect that gave depth to tracks and felt like you were moving in a 3D space around a track.

Nintendo didn't need any advice on coming up with a racer for their system or how to go about it because they were already tinkering with the stuff for awhile. FX chip just allowed for a bit more realization like with Stunt Race FX, and the N64 being the big jump they needed to go further with Mario Kart and F-Zero.
 
I like Larry's videos, I haven't been able to watch this one yet but it sounds like he botched it.

In all seriousness the guy has enough "I could have made Halo but I didn't want to" sort of quotes you could make him look bad without having to piece together really questionable conclusions.

does he now

all i see is him expressing amusement and wishing he would have thought of that

this may come as a shock but miyamoto has praised other games other than his own or Nintendo's
 

Dremark

Banned
does he now

all i see is him expressing amusement and wishing he would have thought of that

this may come as a shock but miyamoto has praised other games other than his own or Nintendo's

"I could make Halo," Miyamoto says. "It's not that I couldn't design that game. It's just that I choose not to.

I'm not saying all the dude does is slag off on other people's games, someone claimed he said he could have made Minecraft in another point in this thread, but he actually said they *should* have made it.

He does slag off on other people's stuff and he does restart projects from scratch and have other people change thier visions for games (for better or worse, admittedly it sounds like 9 out of 10 times it's for the better though).

If I wanted to I am confident that I could put together a video that makes him look bad and use solid examples rather than connect the dots hearsay like Larry did.

This isn't to take shots at Miyamoto (I think he's great and his track record largely speaks for itself) or Larry (I think he's great too but he screwed up this video). The fact of the matter is no one is perfect and even if you can pull 4 examples of him coming off like a jerk out if a 35+ year career it doesn't mean he's a douchebag, it means he's human.
 
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