Itoi Interviews Miyamoto

Haha I was going to send you a message about this interview but decided not to.

Super cool mural, bro.

I’ve been wondering about this; I see Itoi appearing in all sorts of various things for Nintendo recently, and I know he’s worked there for years, but what does he do these days? In the 20 years he’s been there, hasn’t he only made the 3 Mother games and a few other minor titles? Does he have any real developer/PR role? It just seems like they keep him around because he’s fun to talk to, but what’s his actual job at Nintendo?

Heh, the way I see it, NoA actually referencing Itoi in the context of EarthBound is a mixed message if I ever saw one. It’s even more unusual and mixed in regard to how they phrased the tweet about the interview on their Twitter account… it’s like they were expecting his name to be recognised in that context, after they’ve spent so long doing a pretty good job of pretending the series doesn’t exist. 😛

Also lol, Nintendo made the “Itoi is an author” mistake.

Mofax: Itoi doesn’t work for Nintendo, his video game stuff is really just a tiny thing he used to do on the side.

While we’re on the subject, I’m still waiting for the Itoi article, Mato D:

What an interesting read! But like most of Itoi’s stuff, I find I have to read it super slow to understand anything. I don’t know if it’s the diction or the topic, but…

Knowing that Itoi has more or less quit game creation, I was surprised to see Miyamoto reference Itoi as one of his creative collaborators in an interview he gave in June to a French pop culture magazine (“Chronic’Art”). He mentioned him sort of out of the blue in contrast to the more purely technical consultants that help with real-world knowledge for things like Wii Fit +.

I doubt that this is evidence that Itoi and Miyamoto are secretly working on something, but nevertheless my curiosity is piqued – if it’s been years since they last worked on a game together, it’s interesting that Miyamoto would pull Itoi off the top of his head as one of his closest creative collaborators.

I could be missing something, though (maybe Miyamoto was thinking of Itoi’s DSi apps or something), so someone correct me if that’s the case. Anyway, sweet interview. I really want that blown-up Mario on my wall.

Aren’t you glad you didn’t have to translate that yourself, Mato… or at least have people asking you to translate it. It is kind of weird for it to be on the Nintendo website, let alone link to 1101.com. I loved the interview it was something I never would have expected (especially for a Mario 25th anniversary interview) I’m glad that he conducted it instead of Satoru Iwata.

Pro interview. It’s interesting to note that they actually almost never talk about Mario directly, but discuss life philosophies. :3

Very cool.

@lone ranger of ROCK: I believe Miyamoto worked together with Itoi on the first Mother game, if that’s what you meant.

@A2:You’re right, he probably was thinking of their past collaboration on the MOTHER series. It was just interesting because he mentioned Itoi as a collaborator (in the present tense, no less) in a response to an otherwise unrelated question just two months ago. I have no doubt that it was an innocent remark, though.

…fishy. All the figures and this interview. Something is up but, I’m probably getting my hopes up. But, still… something is UP!!!

@Lone ranger of rock: There must be something about French pop culture magazines that makes Japanese game developers think about unrelated people they worked with over 20 years ago.

@A2: Probably the copious amounts of wine I assumed they are offered during such interviews.

I always enjoy seeing the side projects (though I don’t know if you could really call this a “project”) that Itoi gets into. It seems that he’s a bit of a Renaissance man when it comes to Japanese popular culture.

i really wish they would make a make a mother 4.:(

“Among gaming enthusiasts in the West he is most well known as the creator of Nintendo’s Mother series”

“IN THE WEST”

WE EXIST!

Finally:
Yea, I was just about to post that, you beat me to it. I think it’s interesting how NOA actually aknowlaged EB on their site. This is the first time I’ve seen them do this.

Looking through the interview, Itoi says:
“In those situations, Shigeru Miyamoto isn’t worth a darn.”
Do you think he really said that, or this is a case of NOA censorship?

Also looking through the interview, I noticed this when Itoi was talking about Miis (because it has everything to do with mario :P)
Miyamoto: “Right. We’d been thinking for a long time about a game using caricatures….”
What is “caricatures” supposed to mean?

I wish he told him about S.D. Seeger.

The link doesn’t seem to work anymore. 🙁

Found the new link!
http://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/#/wii/mario25th/0/0