Ontwikkeltijd Skyward Sword 'twee jaar korter'

Nintendo heeft al eerder bekendgemaakt dat Skyward Sword tot nu toe het meest intensieve project is in de Zelda-serie, daar honderd man al vijf jaar lang aan de game werkt. Maar Miyamoto zegt dat de eerste twee jaar 'niet meetellen'.

"I did say it was five years, but the first two of those were spent with assorted experimentation, so essentially it was three years. We went through kind of a long experimentation period, I suppose", zegt Miyamoto in de nieuwe Famitsu.

Ook al wilde de Zelda-bedenker dat Skyward Sword binnen drie jaar zou uitkomen, toch ziet hij die extra twee experimentele jaren niet als verloren tijd.

"When you have a development period of five years, it’s often the case that around two of those years wind up being completely wasted effort. With this game, though, I think all the work that everyone put into this project gets fully seen in the final product."

Miyamoto geeft toe dat tijdens de ontwikkeling van dit project franchisemoeheid toesloeg. "It’s occasionally the case during game development that the project doesn’t proceed along as planned or doesn’t turn out as fun as expected when you make it. This Zelda had some of those problems."

"We ran into this issue of people wondering who really wants to make a Zelda sequel – whether a sequel was necessary from the company standpoint, or whether it’s just me saying ‘Let’s do it.’ A game really gets its start when you have someone who says ‘I want to do something like this,’ but sometimes it’s born simply because it’s a series title or there’s more story to cover."

"For us games provide a structure for play, and if you’re making a sequel, you have to have that desire to improve, strengthen, and expand things right at the core of the project”, zegt Miyamoto. “To put it in an extreme way, the ideal for me is to build the play structure up to a certain point, then decide whether to make it Zelda or Mario. It’s like building up the engine and chassis, then deciding later what sort of car you want to use it on."