Wii Sports Resort's E3 2008 demo completed in three months

by JC Fletcher { Jul 7th 2009 at 8:00PM }

When we first saw Wii Sports Resort last year, all Nintendo had available were three of the game's events: swordplay, power cruising, and Disc Dog. It turns out that those three (quite polished) events are pretty much all that existed at the time. In the latest Iwata Asks interview, the Wii Sports Resort team reveals that they didn't have anything but the idea of maybe doing another sequel until three months before E3 2008. Above, you can see what had been done: a MotionPlus test involving a virtual toy.

As usual, the Iwata Asks interview is full of surprisingly forthright discussion about the inner workings of Nintendo, including the team (and Shigeru Miyamoto) expressing its elation about a MotionPlus delay that allowed for more work on Resort, everyone's relative confusion at Miyamoto's "Wuhu Island" franchise idea, and, best of all, Miyamoto's deceptive methods of team motivation.

At one point, Miyamoto announced in an interview that golf would be in Wii Sports Resort, and that the MotionPlus would allow backswing to control the strength of the swing, instead of just speed -- and the team had to rush to actually put golf in the game afterward. Later, he describes how he faked a directive from Satoru Iwata to add an extra game mode. And apparently a programmer couldn't demonstrate the archery feature for Miyamoto because he was too nervous to aim the bow properly.

Shigeru Miyamoto sounds like kind of a jerk, actually.

Tags: miyamoto, motionplus, wii-sports, wii-sports-resort

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Mr.Happy @ Jul 7th 2009 8:30PM

Kill it with fire.

Xoonaka @ Jul 7th 2009 8:09PM

"Shigeru Miyamoto sounds like kind of a jerk, actually."

I'm pretty sure he kind of is. God complexes are unhealthy for anyone, and if he doesn't have one considering how the industry at large treats him, I'd be surprised.

mr nimblewick @ Jul 7th 2009 8:12PM

Heck, the God Complex is bad for God himself. Who does he think he is?

Fun DMC @ Jul 7th 2009 8:19PM

I've heard Miyamoto throws tables and shit.

idiot @ Jul 7th 2009 8:31PM

People think Urban Meyer is a jerk... gets the job done though.

Girugamuk (Moptimus Slimed) @ Jul 7th 2009 8:38PM

"Video-games are bad for you? That's what they said about Rock 'N' Roll."

NewJohnny @ Jul 7th 2009 8:47PM

This is how the Japanese get shit done. I would rather have him for a boss than some spineless pacifist who keeps missing deadlines.

Roto13 @ Jul 7th 2009 9:17PM

I really don't think it's anything like a God complex, since he apparently doesn't make a ton of money. :P

Mr Khan @ Jul 7th 2009 10:15PM

He doesn't make a lot of money, no, but he does apparently (seriously) have the power to table or completely cancel any internal Nintendo project at any stage of development.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shigeru_Miyamoto#Work_style

Josh @ Jul 7th 2009 10:54PM

Yeah, he's got a lot of power, and uses it to get shit done as he wants it.

It's only natural to fear that power a bit.

Cody @ Jul 8th 2009 10:44AM

@ idiot,

Well said, good sir.

mr nimblewick @ Jul 7th 2009 8:13PM

Interesting development cycle. But don't all the best games happen like this?

Xoonaka @ Jul 7th 2009 8:43PM

I'm pretty sure in most games, one person can't go out and promise a feature in a single off the cuff comment and then get it shoe horned into the development cycle. Then again, a lot of games today have a longer dev cycle then 1 year as well. So it's really a double negative for that poor team... unless of course they get incentives, such as royalties. Then they'll be living fine, I'm sure.

mr nimblewick @ Jul 7th 2009 8:52PM

No, not with most games. Just the BEST ones.

Xoonaka @ Jul 7th 2009 9:48PM

I guarantee you the best games aren't made in less then a year, and I'm sure the management puts more thought into their feature sets. As for Resort, I've played it, it ain't that great. More like Wii Play 2, not Wii Sports 2.

Lemmiwinks @ Jul 7th 2009 8:17PM

"Miyamoto is a jerk"

sounds like the new #Pachterfacts.

J-Link @ Jul 7th 2009 8:21PM

When you read about Miyamoto in interviews, sometimes he does come off as a jerk, like when Miyamoto said he thought Ratchet and Clank was a PC game, I wonder If he was serious though?

Jacksons @ Jul 7th 2009 8:37PM

I hope he wasn't serious. If he's really that out of touch, that would be rather sad.

MystileArmor @ Jul 7th 2009 8:54PM

We're talking about a guy who thought Wii Music was a good idea.

WREturns @ Jul 7th 2009 10:04PM

We're also talking about the guy that's the reason that any of us play videogames.

mazza_man @ Jul 8th 2009 5:52AM

I'd also like to point out that Rachet and Clank isn't as OMFG as PS3 fanboys think it is. There's no reason why Shiggy should have heard of it.

cyberalyman @ Jul 7th 2009 8:41PM

He's a jerk like Steve Jobs is a jerk, but they get things done.

MRLN @ Jul 7th 2009 8:37PM

Oh, I'm sure he's just trying to help...

in a very roundabout manner.

He's still cool 9/10 times in interviews.

Lemmiwinks @ Jul 7th 2009 8:37PM

re: Miyamoto's island idea -- Imagine if Blizzard licensed out Azeroth.

Danzaiver @ Jul 7th 2009 8:56PM

Miyamoto yelled to Luigi once... and he never recovered

ArchiGamer @ Jul 7th 2009 9:24PM

Is that why he's always dodgy.

sony boy @ Jul 7th 2009 10:02PM

No wonder he's a fucking pussy. I'd piss my pants and live in a basement ofr the rest of my life if i got yelled by God #2

Cesaria (seh-sare-ee-ah) @ Jul 7th 2009 9:15PM

People fear Miyamoto. As they should.

ArchiGamer @ Jul 7th 2009 9:25PM

Wouldn't you be with all that power.

Mr Khan @ Jul 7th 2009 9:28PM

Miyamoto does randomly kidnap employees, after all.

Also: this does seem to feed the idea that they threw together the E3 2008 presentation as a desperation move, with the idea that the Sony & MS motion solutions were going to be unveiled that year.

m0m0 @ Jul 7th 2009 9:37PM

it's pretty polished all right, considering there really isn't that much of a game to polish.

FNG @ Jul 7th 2009 10:12PM

shit like this doesn't take long to poop out I guess...

Mr Khan @ Jul 7th 2009 10:17PM

You realize how much content they packed in there with little over a year of development? No? You're just here to troll?

Sorry. My mistake.

Leroy_Octopus @ Jul 7th 2009 10:30PM

He has a point actually. Rachet & Clank: Going Commando was made in just a year, and it had more content than this.

mercy @ Jul 7th 2009 11:40PM

I'm going to agree with him. It shouldn't take that long to polish a bunch of glorified mini-games.

mercy @ Jul 7th 2009 11:41PM

Just goes to show how complacent Nintendo gets when they know their shit is going to sell.

sam @ Jul 8th 2009 5:23PM

@mercy: (and no I didn't downvote, everyone else did)

Actually, it does take at least that long to polish mini-games. That's why Nintendo's minigames are so much better than the 'cash-in' minigame collections. It's still just minigames, so yeah they're not *that* good, but you know you're at least getting the best quality minigames. :)

A lot of the 'polishing' deal is about gameplay mechanics, too. If you have to 'polish' a ton of minigames, that's harder than polishing just one gameplay mechanic for a typical major title. (But, of course, they don't have to spend a lot of time polishing the graphics, because there's not much in the way of that, so it evens out.)

I actually didn't plan to get Wii Sports Resort (after E3 2008, it looked pretty meh), but since they revealed the full list of sports and stuff, I changed my mind. I still don't expect it to hold my attention that long but so what? You only have to play each minigame for an hour on average (i.e. you play the crappy ones for twenty minutes, and the good ones for a couple hours) and that's a respectable play length. Sports Resort looks like fun!