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Deca Sports Interview with Makato Kawaguchi

by Aaron Kaluszka - August 31, 2010, 12:37 am EDT
Total comments: 1

We talk to the producer of Deca Sports about the thinking involved in the series.

The Deca Sports series has successfully capitalized on the popularity of alternative-control-based sports games on the Wii and Nintendo DS. Soon, two more titles will be added to the series, Deca Sports 3 for Wii, featuring MotionPlus support, and Deca Sports Freedom for Xbox 360's Kinect system. At E3, we sat down with Makoto Kawaguchi, producer of the Deca Sports series, to briefly discuss the thought processes behind creating their wide variety of mini-games.

Nintendo World Report (NWR): How did you come up with the Deca Sports concept?

Makoto Kawaguchi (MK): We were really focused on creating a kind of game that would allow every family member to essentially play the game and enjoy. Obviously, different people have different levels of confidence -- things you're good at, things you're not good at. And if there are 10 sports, there's something for dad, something for kids, and even something for grandparents. We were just really focused on creating a one-stop-shop for the entire family.

NWR: How do you come up with each new set of 10 sports?

MK: With Wii, we were just really focused on looking for sports that would enhance why Wii has become so popular. It's intuitive, it's the motion, and obviously with Kinect, it's the same thing. We just were really focused on what kind of motion each sport requires, and then how that would fit into each different hardware. It was a struggle, obviously, because there are so many different things to consider when picking sports. There are a gazillion sports out there. It was a little bit of a challenge, but we felt like we got a really good group of sports for everyone to enjoy.

NWR: Is it difficult to create sports for these different input devices, starting with the Wii Remote, then the MotionPlus, and then the Kinect?

MK: So for instance, we have tennis in both Wii and Kinect, but because they are different user interfaces, the way we can best show off the hardware is to take a look at what features make them distinct and how they can best represent the sport. We have lots of ideas -- Everybody in our offices is constantly thinking of ways to make the different sports work best with the different interfaces. We try hard to come up with sports that best exploit each platform's individual specialties and develop those that make the most sense.

NWR: Are you surprised by the success of Deca Sports?

MK: To be honest, in the beginning, yes, we were pretty shocked. Surprised, really happy, but really surprised. But after we conducted a lot of focus groups and testing and we heard why people loved Deca Sports, we then felt validated somewhat, that it was a success. And we felt like we were able to further incorporate those customers' voices from all those focus groups into Deca Sports 3, so hopefully it will match and even surpass the first two in the franchise.

NWR: Are there any sports you would like to include, but haven't figured out exactly how to make them work yet?

MK: There were some really different kinds of sports that we were trying to incorporate into Wii, one of which was horseback riding. Kind of a British style -- trotting the proper way or jumping the fence, but we just couldn't figure out how to make holding the Remote represent the sport itself. We tried and failed a couple times. That is something that might still happen in the future depending on the hardware and how we can further incorporate it, but it hasn't happened yet.

NWR: What sort of ideas do you have to bring Deca Sports to the 3DS?

MK: We really want to exploit what's really unique about the 3DS, and one of the things that we are really focusing on is the tilt feature of it, and there will be some of the popular sports from the rest of the series. We are incorporating a completely new sport that's just specific to the 3DS, so you will have to wait and see. We can't talk about that quite yet.

We would like to thank Kawaguchi-san, Hudson, and Konami for the interview opportunity! Interview conducted by Aaron Kaluszka and transcribed by Dan Wasielewski.

Talkback

King of TwitchAugust 31, 2010

They were shocked that ripping off Wii Sports was successful?

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