Author Topic: Iwata Ask: Super Smash Bros. Brawl - Developer Interview with Sakurai (Read 6086 times)

BlackNMild2k1 · « **on:** January 21, 2008, 07:58:07 PM »

Iwata Ask Sakurai About SSBB pt. 1

This is apparently part one of another one of Iwata's Developer Interviews

Who is the Secret Developer of SSBB?

Quote
Sakurai
Right. Then, just when we were looking for some help, we secured some staff from another video game developer.

Iwata
We were introduced to this company by Miyamoto-san. You can share the name if you like.

Sakurai
Oh, okay. It was Game Arts. It was just after they had finished Grandia III and they told us that they had some staff free. So, we decided to leave the main part of preliminary development to them while we began to hire remaining staff. We did so by looking for people specifically for the Smash Bros. Brawl title.

What kind of manpower was put into SSBB?

Quote
Iwata
How many staff members did you end up having for this project?

Sakurai
Roughly 100 individuals. Of course, there would be even more if you count supervisors and contractors. Looking at all the staff that appears in the staff credits, it was about 700 people.

Iwata
So the number of people involved fulltime was roughly 100.

Why did Iwata respectfully demand Sakurai do the SSBB project?

Quote
Iwata
You know, these aren?t the type of procedures I would employ for just any game. I mean, if this was a regular game, I would never work this way.

Sakurai
Right.

Iwata
My decision to pursue the project in this way rested on one point and one point alone, and it is deeply tied to the point about which I have the utmost faith in a man named Masahiro Sakurai. To state it simply, you are capable of taking a project with nothing and visualizing a completed game almost perfectly in your head. As I mentioned earlier, you and I have a long history working together at HAL Laboratory. When involved on the same project, you were able to point out the smallest details even when the product had yet to take shape. The details were so small and so specific that, as a programmer, I thought there was no way you could know what you knew without actually trying it first. As the game progressed and took shape, however, it was clear that we needed to address the details in just the way you had described. So I would ask "did you really know this right from the start?" I mean, this was over ten years ago, but I remember you said you did and I thought to myself "is this guy for real?" As it happened over and over again, however, I had little choice but to believe you. I don?t know how, but you?re able to visualize a game right down to its very details, as if the finished game is working inside your mind. If not, how else could you have been right so many times? Even now, Masahiro Sakurai, of all the people that I know, you especially can readily form an image of how a game will look when finished. That?s why I knew that you would be capable of putting together the ideas of the talented staff around you. If you don?t have a person like that pulling together different ideas, you need a lot of trust within the team or the project will not go anywhere. When a project has just begun, it?s natural for directions to come from a vague concept of the product. It?s natural for there to be revisions and twists and turns, and as this continues, the project becomes something different than it was at the start. This is not necessarily a bad thing and happens all the time when designing games. However, this only works because of the trust built up from the past of a long working relationship. That?s why it was so unusual to recruit outside staff solely for the purpose of making such a large-scale game. Yet it was exactly this type of thinking on which I was betting our success.

Why should you tune in for Part two of this Developer Interview?

Quote
Iwata
Actually, this brings me to the next part of our interview. Can you tell me about the things that first came to mind when you thought about developing a new Smash Bros. game?

(To be continued)

NWR_pap64 · « **Reply #1 on:** January 21, 2008, 08:08:06 PM »

This was a great interview. I can't wait to read about online play and third party characters.

GoldenPhoenix · « **Reply #2 on:** January 21, 2008, 08:10:49 PM »

I want to know what the budget is for Smash Brothers Brawl, it has to be MASSIVE with all these people working on it.

UltimatePartyBear · « **Reply #3 on:** January 22, 2008, 03:54:56 AM »

Now I see why it was so hard to figure out who the secret developer was. It never occurred to me to look at recently finished PS2 games, and even if it had, I don't think I would have considered a company that usually develops RPGs.

Arbok · « **Reply #4 on:** January 22, 2008, 06:11:20 AM »

Quote
Originally posted by: PartyBear
Now I see why it was so hard to figure out who the secret developer was. It never occurred to me to look at recently finished PS2 games, and even if it had, I don't think I would have considered a company that usually develops RPGs.

Yeah, I'm also surprised that it was Miyamoto that introduced them to GameArts... anyone know what relation he has to the company?

Dirk Temporo · « **Reply #5 on:** January 22, 2008, 06:29:06 AM »

Iwata homosexual for Sakurai: CONFIRMED.

(Who can I complain to about the word g@y being censored?)

BlackNMild2k1 · « **Reply #6 on:** January 22, 2008, 08:06:17 PM »

Iwata Ask: Part 2

Mikintosh · « **Reply #7 on:** January 22, 2008, 08:53:49 PM »

So, I guess no Mii fighter in Brawl, not that I was particularly pushing for that. And that planning document brings up the rainbow of Wiis; are those never gonna come out?

mantidor · « **Reply #8 on:** January 23, 2008, 01:52:25 AM »

"Also, I think that fundamentally, we shouldn’t try and separate the casual gamers from the core gamers. After all, everyone starts off as a casual gamer. Some of these casual gamers will end up falling in love with gaming. Despite this fact though, I think that people too often treat them as entities that are inherently different. "

I've been saying the same thing since the annoying term "non-game" was introduced, nice to see Iwata thinks the same,.

Louieturkey · « **Reply #9 on:** January 23, 2008, 03:47:18 AM »

Well, they haven't figured out how to integrate casual and hardcore gamers yet. Though I like some of the non-games, I don't play them as much as game-games. Maybe Smash Bros will start them in the right direction and they will continue that way and have games that everyone will enjoy and gamers won't continue to complain about the lack of real games.

Bill Aurion · « **Reply #10 on:** January 23, 2008, 07:05:46 AM »

Iwata and Sakurai are two of the coolest people on the planet...I'd give anything just to sit in the room as the two talk... ='D

Ceric · « **Reply #11 on:** January 23, 2008, 07:11:03 AM »

I have to say that the second part was more Iwata athen Sakurai.

IceCold · « **Reply #12 on:** January 23, 2008, 06:16:03 PM »

That's a lot of whiskey! Iwata and Sakurai are tanks..

BlackNMild2k1 · « **Reply #13 on:** January 23, 2008, 07:40:04 PM »

Iwata Ask: Part 3

Louieturkey · « **Reply #14 on:** January 24, 2008, 03:15:08 AM »

This is the most fun I've had reading an interview with two friends in a while. I wonder how many parts this will be.

Spak-Spang · « **Reply #15 on:** January 24, 2008, 03:57:13 AM »

I like what they are talking about. But it is kinda frustrating to read articles where Nintendo is acting like they have these grand online ideas that Microsoft has been pulling off longer and better.

Some of their ideas are brilliant, but I absolutely hate the one day levels...because if I love a level I want access to it much longer than one day.

Bill Aurion · « **Reply #16 on:** January 24, 2008, 04:02:25 AM »

Um, I believe you can save any level that you like...

stevey · « **Reply #17 on:** January 24, 2008, 04:44:06 AM »

Quote
And a stage selected from the entire daily collection will be sent from Nintendo to your Wii. A stage made by someone else will come to you over the Internet once per day!

DUN DUN DUNNNNNN! That's the shocking truth. This means you'll be able to experience a new stage every day?the flavor of the day, if you will. However, the plan is for that stage to vanish once one day has passed. It's a once-in-a-lifetime encounter.

, if you love a level that much you can always take a snap shot of it ands try to remake it later...... still suck though>.>

Nick DiMola · « **Reply #18 on:** January 24, 2008, 05:43:54 AM »

Quote
Originally posted by: Bill Aurion
Um, I believe you can save any level that you like...

Yeah, it was my impression that they are just featuring a level a day, but you could always keep it if you like it. If you don't get the level that day it will be lost forever, but if you download it, you will have it forever. As a matter of fact, I had been planning to download the featured level everyday and back them all up on my computer.

King of Twitch · « **Reply #19 on:** January 24, 2008, 10:40:02 AM »

"Those in the top five might feel pretty good about themselves, but what happens if you’re number 15,398 in the rankings? People considered formidable in their own particular community wouldn’t be the least bit pleased. "

How about an option to choose ranked or unranked matches? Nintendo wifi: Nintendumbing down online games since 2005.

Bill Aurion · « **Reply #20 on:** January 24, 2008, 11:14:27 AM »

Quote
Originally posted by: stevey
Quote
And a stage selected from the entire daily collection will be sent from Nintendo to your Wii. A stage made by someone else will come to you over the Internet once per day!

DUN DUN DUNNNNNN! That's the shocking truth. This means you'll be able to experience a new stage every day?the flavor of the day, if you will. However, the plan is for that stage to vanish once one day has passed. It's a once-in-a-lifetime encounter.

, if you love a level that much you can always take a snap shot of it ands try to remake it later...... still suck though>.>

That just means that you'll only have one chance to grab a stage before it disappears the next day...

LuigiHann · « **Reply #21 on:** January 24, 2008, 03:00:21 PM »

http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/gamemode/wi-fi/wi-fi05.html

Quote
Now, downloaded data from Nintendo will gradually be overwritten, so there’s no need to worry about your Wii’s memory running out.

Emphasis mine.

Sounds like the stages and stuff you download from Nintendo will be deleted automatically, but only when you download more stages. Something like that.

Stogi · « **Reply #22 on:** January 24, 2008, 03:11:46 PM »

Quote
Originally posted by: MJRx9000
"Those in the top five might feel pretty good about themselves, but what happens if you?re number 15,398 in the rankings? People considered formidable in their own particular community wouldn?t be the least bit pleased. "

How about an option to choose ranked or unranked matches? Nintendo wifi: Nintendumbing down online games since 2005.

QFT

Why are we assuming all casual gamers aren't competitive? Isn't one of the features of a ranked system pairing people based on skill?

Oh well....At least I can play you guys.

BlackNMild2k1 · « **Reply #23 on:** January 24, 2008, 07:01:45 PM »

Iwata Ask: Part 4

Robageejammin · « **Reply #24 on:** January 24, 2008, 07:28:20 PM »

video...so...smooth....

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Author Topic: Iwata Ask: Super Smash Bros. Brawl - Developer Interview with Sakurai (Read 6086 times)