Wii

What else did they point out?

For example, there's a four-player battle game called Flag Fracas. You take your position, then after the starting gun, you shake the Wii Remote to run and get the flag. The director of Wii Sports Resort played it. He said that you can already tell who is going to win at the starting bang, so it isn't any fun.

We had imagined there being three stages of play-the starting bang, shaking the remote, and then using the A Button for a final spurt. When I explained it like that, he said, "If that's so, then it should be fun. Maybe the reason it doesn't feel that way when you play it is because you just haven't realized it precisely the right way. How about changing the camera angle?"

They could really stick it to you, but in a nice way. (laughs)

When I heard that, though, I thought he was right.

You just caved in? (laughs)

Yeah. I really did. (laughs) But then we made some adjustments and in the end it turned out much better.

It was just a little adjustment, but it made a vast improvement.

There were lots of places where a small change could completely change how fun it was, and the Wii Sports Resort team spotted them for you.

There were actually several times when their criticism was pretty harsh and I only made the changes reluctantly, but in the end those places turned out much better.

Besides, we were really thankful that they had taken the time to pay attention to such small details. When I played Wii Sports Resort again, there were lots of places where I thought, "Ahh, now I see..."

So the Wii Sports Resort team didn't exactly take a direct hand in the development of Wii Party, but nonetheless it completely feels as if it belongs in the Wii series. Everyone, thank you very much for your hard work.

Okay, any final recommendations for the players?

This time I feel like we made game software to which the word "party" really is appropriate. Family members and friends can battle each other in four-player mode and couples can play in cooperation with each other. And you can party it up apart from the television as well.

What's more, we made it a party game that grandmas and grandpas can join and play without the need for a handicap, so I hope everyone will live it up as they play.

It's a party game that, like the other games in the Wii series, allows a wide variety of people to play, and carries that even further.

That's right. The player characters are Mii characters, so you can tell at a glance who won and who lost. With Mario Party, if your dad lost, he could always make the excuse that he lost because he was Luigi, but...

This time it's your other self on the screen, so there's no room for excuses.

Right. (laughs) And even if you don't play, but you just watch over everyone else's shoulders, it's easy to see who won. This time, the change of emotions for players between the happiness when they win and the frustration when they lose is more dramatic than before because of the Mii characters.

To recommend something specific, there's a game called Friend Connection. I hope young couples or married couples or parents and their children will try it out. The results aren't anything you should take too seriously, but it allows you to learn things like what the other person is thinking about.

You want people to try it out with people close to them.

Yes. If you do, you'll discover just how little you understand someone, so I would like people to try it out.

This may overlap what Nishiya-san said a little, but there's something called a Buddy Quiz in the House Party section. Even if you play that with friends you're fairly close to, you realize you had no idea what kinds of things were on their mind.

A lot of the time you'll be like, "I had no idea!" So rather than children, I think it's really fun for younger generations, like students and people in their twenties, to play with their friends. I hope they'll play the Buddy Quiz after the Friend Connection.

When you do the Friend Connection and Buddy Quiz, you experience a sense of happiness you just don't get with other games.

Ohhh... (laughs)

I played it together with my group members. I was happy to learn that they knew me pretty well. But that's not what I want to recommend. (laughs) While we were making Wii Party, we threw out a lot of ideas. We thought long and hard about what would truly be fun as party games and only put in those ideas.

However, everyone on the development staff had a slightly different idea about what would make a good party game, giving the sum collection its own overall feel. Everyone has their own life and put in what they value as fun. That gives the game a distinct character that I hope everyone will enjoy.

Many of the creative works in the world are made according to the vision of one person, with lots of other people helping. But when various personalities and creative sensibilities come together into one pot, bound together by common rules-like with the game WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$!¹² -, you can sense a mysterious appeal and richness. Is that what you mean?

Right. I want players to enjoy the richness that the game received from each staff member.

Thank you. Lastly, I'll say a little something.

While I've never exactly thought that party games were only for children, I think some people have the idea that adults only played them in order to interact with their children.

But when I see the TV ads of the game which simply showed how the five members of Arashi¹³ had naturally enjoyed playing Wii Party, I feel like we have redefined party games and established a new standard. So I hope everyone will play this game for a long time to come.

I do, too. I hope people will play Wii Party for years to come as the new standard in party game software.

Wii Party will be released during summer break (North American release date is 10/4), so people may be playing around the time of Obon¹⁴, but they may also gather to play it at the end of the year, so what I want to say is that I think it would be great if there's one wherever people gather together.

What makes me want to say that is the feeling I have that Wii Party turned out to be something players can rely on for a fun party. And it turned out that way because you worked so hard and for so long on it. Thank you very much for your hard work.