Miyamoto goes on the offensive

TOKYO--Namco’s Toru Iwatani and Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto spoke at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography today. The museum’s NES retrospective, now in its second week, provided a fitting backdrop as the two shared their thoughts on the exhibit itself, talked about the art of game development, and went mano a mano on Pac-Man vs., the remake of Namco’s classic hit.

Both designers enjoyed the exhibit. Miyamoto (above, right) confessed he’d been concerned that the old NES games might not live up to modern gamers’ standards, but after viewing the exhibit, that worry disappeared. He praised the “good atmosphere” and commented on the evolving viewpoint on games in Japan, saying “Even five years ago, a game exhibit would have just been like a video arcade. But this exhibit is museumlike.”

Iwatani suggested that games are the latest expression of a cultural tradition of entertainment. “Long ago, Japan had kabuki, and now we have manga and games… In the future, I hope games will be recognized as ‘important cultural assets.’” [This is a designation that the Japanese government currently awards to important cultural sites and artifacts.]

After a while, the talk turned to the console arms race. Interestingly, both designers agreed that the current generation of consoles provides enough processing power for everything they want to do. As Iwatani commented, “There isn’t really anything else that I want from the hardware. What we have already is enough.” He compared hardware to canvas and paint and summed up by saying, “We have enough paint--the real problem now is what to do with it.” The designers spoke in front of a 10-foot screen showing the Pac-Man vs. startup screen, so naturally enough the conversation turned to that game. Iwatani talked about how he found out about it. “I called Miyamoto to talk about something else. It was the first time I’d ever called him directly. When he came to the phone he said ‘Oh, there’s something I wanted to tell you. We’ve been working on a Pac-Man game.’”

Initially Iwatani didn’t think his creation was still relevant. His first response was, “Why would you want to do something like that in this day and age?” But Miyamoto won him over, and when other Namco execs had their first chance to play an early version of the game, they agreed that Nintendo should continue the project. (For a description of Pac-Man vs., see this article on the game’s appearance at E3.)