Miyamoto foresees more user-generated content in the future
Nintendo designer Shigeru Miyamoto may not play many of his competitors' games, but he does see a future where games like LittleBigPlanet will become increasingly commonplace. After demoing a few levels from the upcoming New Super Mario Bros. Wii, we asked Miyamoto if he'd ever consider giving everyday players the tools to make their own Mario levels. "This is an area that I have a lot of interest in, and I think that the side-scrolling Mario games in particular are well suited to that idea," Miyamoto said (as translated by Bill Trinnen).
Miyamoto then pointed to previous Nintendo works in an attempt to prove his openness towards the idea. "Of course the Mario vs. Donkey Kong series is one that's made in North America by NST, but it's one that I've been involved in and from early on. We did have a lot of discussions about how to enable that kind of level creation in that series. And of course, more recently on Nintendo DSi, we have released Flipnote Studio, which is another kind of utility or tool-type of software that's really about letting users let their creation out and share it with others."
Neither examples have the depth or scope of what we wanted Miyamoto to do: Confirm a LBP-esque community-driven Mario platformer. As implausible as that may sound, Miyamoto reiterated his interest, and admitted that the future will see more of these kinds of games. "And I think those types of interactive experiences are going to continue to broaden and we'll see a lot more user-generated content going forward. I've always had an interest in those kinds of creative tools, so I will definitely be open to ideas like that in the future."
