Thanks to GameCubicle, who've given us full permission to use their transcript.

As a man who seems essentially a creative person, how do you find balance in your life with the stresses and pressures of the roles you've taken on at Nintendo?

MIYAMOTO: That's a very large topic. Once I turned forty, I actually took up swimming and now I'm swimming at least one or two kilometers every week. Also, about that time, I quit smoking. Of course, weekdays I work very late hours generally. So I'm certain on the weekends to spend all my time with my wife and family.

As a creative person, does part of the creative process involve having a space to be creative?

MIYAMOTO: I think that is very important. You do need a lot of space and some freedom in order to come up with some ideas. But I'm actually more the type of where I come up with ideas when I'm working and so it's not as much of a challenge for me. Really, I try to find that balance and space by expanding out into new areas. Lately, my family's gotten a dog. We've been spending a lot of time with the dog and taking care of it. That's brought me some pleasure too and a little bit of balance.

A lot of the games and announcements we've seen so far this year are sequels. Will there be a healthy introduction of new franchises this year as well?

MIYAMOTO: Yeah, I do intend to show something at E3.

What do you see as being your biggest challenge this year?

MIYAMOTO: I think this year our biggest challenge is to really take connectivity to the next level and put it out in a form that people understand what the real concept of it is and can see where they can take that. Of course, with the e-Reader out, we're looking at finding ways to incorporate the e-Reader into gameplay and really create new styles of gameplay that only Nintendo can offer.

Everyone loves Wind Waker. But a lot of people preferred the more realistic-style of the Zelda of Space World 2000. Do you have any plans to explore that style?

AONUMA: The first thing I'd like to say is that I think that once people actually play The Wind Waker and get into the game, they immediately understand why we chose the graphical style that we did to go with this game. So even if people are fans of the more graphical looking Zelda games, I think if they'll just give this game a chance, pick it up and play it, I think they'll immediately, once again be engulfed in the Zelda world, really understand, and kind of accept the game for what it is.

As for whether or not we'll actually go and create a more realistic looking Zelda game, it's really a question of what kind of game the next one will be. Obviously, the graphical style or methods of expression that we choose for that game are going to be highly dependent on what type of game it is. We haven't come up with the idea yet for the game. But once we do, we'll then have to take a look at what the best method of expression is going to be for that game and so we'll go through that process. So definitely there's a possibility that we will create a more realistic-style Zelda game.

So obviously we've seen in Soul Calibur and Smash Brothers, a definitely more realistic-looking Link. So hopefully that can tide people over. Also, we have the experiment that we did to create the Space World 2000 video. So we have those models and we have them moving around, working. We don't have a game for them but that system is there and it works and it functions.

And you take a look at The Wind Waker. This is a game where you have child-Link throughout the game. You never see adult-Link in the game. I really can't picture adult-Link in a toon-shaded game. It doesn't really match for me. That's why we say we'll think about what the next Zelda game will be. We may have to re-evaluate which style we use.

Do you find that putting an emphasis on realistic graphics limits your creativity and were you able to do more things creatively because of the fantastic style that The Wind Waker has?

AONUMA: Yeah, that's a very good point. As you can see within The Wind Waker, Link's got very large eyes and he's always looking around. They move so much, looking at things and draw a player's attention to objects in the environment. I think with realistic graphics, there's no way that you can do that and have it look right. That's one example of how we were able to do something new with the toon-shaded graphics.

The main reason that we chose the toon-shaded style for The Wind Waker was because we wanted to present the player with a much more smooth and natural looking movement style, this kind of deformation style of movement that we've given Link. Out of that grew these other ideas of how we could use the toon-shading. Like for the eyes to give hints and other ways of expression within the game. I think that's why it's so important to really think about what your objective is and what you intend to use some of these movements for. That's the main reason that we chose toon-shading and there's definitely advantages to it.

MIYAMOTO: One of the most important things with the Zelda franchise is that players must really feel that Link is really almost themselves in the game. In that sense, there has to be very natural and fluid interaction between the player and the character. When you don't have that, you certainly lose some of the nature that makes Zelda what it is. If you were to go with the more realistic-looking Link, then you'd have to have so much movement in the face for [Link] to be able to essentially effect the emotions of the player and make it feel like the player is emoting through Link. That would require so much time and energy in order to create those graphics to allow the face to do that.

Also, particularly with realistic graphics, when you have a character moving through objects or bumping into things in an unnatural way, it just stands out all the more. I think that that's even more unnatural than having these toon-shaded style graphics with extremely natural and realistic movement. That's why this time we've spent so much time and energy with the director and the designers to go through and really focus on making the gameplay fun and making Link really emotive in the game to really draw the player into the world.