programmers-from-japan

"This August, I left Sony Computer Entertainment. My plans for the future are undecided as of now, but for the time being I'm going to continue my summer vacation. I'm also excited about whatever I'm going to be doing next."

"By the way, this game (Bonze Adventure) is made by Kenji Kaido, the guy who produced Tomba!, Ape Escape and Shadow of the Colossus. Wow, he's fucked up!"

"At the moment, we're focused on the PS2. We always wish we had a bit more power... more memory, faster CPU... we ALL wish for that sort of thing. We're looking forward to working on a higher-spec machine. On the other hand, the PS2 is a platform with wide appeal and has a strong development environment. We're used to working with the hardware. It's a two-sided coin ... I always wonder, though, if these games would be appropriate for a portable machine like the PSP."

"There isn't really one particular influence. It's more like a little bit of everything we feel and experience in our lives."

"At the moment, we don't have any plans like that [within the studio]. The decision will be up to each territory's marketing team."

"We want the users to involve their own emotion with the game. We want to make it feel as if the game world is real. Using too much music would ruin this mood."

"The feature that we talked about before, "organic collision deformation", means that while you are fighting, the field you are on is actually the colossus itself. Because it is a sort of living being, it's constantly moving and changing. You can't stand still on the field, you have to keep moving."

"Yes, we do think so. We have to be satisfied with our result, but it has to meet the users' satisfaction, as well."

"The content is perceived as artsy rather than typical action-oriented. Most genres that sell overseas are more action-oriented - it wasn't really a mass-market appealing title. The product also varied from territory to territory, which was something that really depended on the order of the release."

"I'm pretty sure that was inspired by my experience with the original Resident Evil where I examined a book, and a coin - I think it was a coin? - popped out."

"As part of the game's promotion, we also collaborated with the , which was preparing for the official launch of the new system, and gave a presentation of AJ:AA at the ministry's head office."

"Unlike novels or movies, video games are an interactive medium where the player's actions drive the story forward, so I had actually wanted to allow players to manipulate the evidence themeselves earlier on in the series."

"These are all concepts. I make a lot of ideas and inserts. And this is what I just created. I don't write the map by hand anymore; I use illustrator instead to do the map. It has about five layers."

"I always think about all the different elements of what makes something fun."

"I shrink it down by myself, actually. It's up to the schedule, so... If the artists or programmers say "no", then that's the answer. So it's kind of a mix. I always try to push a can-do attitude with them, you know?"

"So I come up with some ideas for the programmer to work with, and they decide what's good and what's impossible to implement, based on schedule or programming difficulty."

"Storytelling is very difficult. But adding the flavor helps to relay the storytelling, meaning in a cut scene, with a set camera and effects, you can make the users feel sorrow, or make them happy or laugh. This is an easy approach, which we have been doing. That is one point, the second point is that if I make multiple storylines and allow the users to select which story, this might really sacrifice the deep emotion the user might feel; when there's a concrete storyline, and you kind of go along that rail, you feel the destiny of the story, which at the end, makes you feel more moved. But when you make it interactive — if you want multiple stories where you go one way or another — will that make the player more moved when he or she finishes the game? These two points are really the key which I am thinking about, and if this works, I think I could probably introduce a more interactive storytelling method."

"I want to end comments that Capcom games made in Europe aren't really Capcom games ... basically saying that whether games are created in America or Japan or anywhere in the world, I will be the one overlooking it and so it will have that Capcom flavor that fans know and love."

"Back in the day Japanese games were used to winning and were used to success. We celebrated all sorts of victories. However at some point these winners became losers. Not accepting that fact has led to the tragic state of Japanese games today."

"It's very severe, but very honest. Unless Japanese people feel embarrassed from the experience of getting harsh comments, saying [new games] could have been better is not an opinion they would take seriously. When they're embarrassed and they feel obliged to change, it would make a difference."

"I look around Tokyo Games Show, and everyone’s making awful games; Japan is at least five years behind."

"Personally when I looked around [at] all the different games at the TGS floor, I said "Man, Japan is over. We're done. Our game industry is finished.""

"You know, I want to word this in a way to explain some of the issues that come with trying to make a game of this size on multiple platforms."

"I'm often called the father of Mega Man, but actually, his design was already created when I joined Capcom.My mentor [Capcom senior member Akira Kitamura], who was the designer of the original Mega Man, had a basic concept of what Mega Man was supposed to look like. So I only did half of the job in creating him."

"If the player isn't tricked into believing that the world is real, then there's no point in making the game."

"I have to say, even though I received this award, let me state that I will not retire. I will continue to create games as long as I live."

"We don't really feel our games have created a standard. I have no concern over others making similar games, it just shows that players wanted games that were like this, that are difficult, and wanted other studios to make challenging games that achieve the same level of satisfaction. We enjoy those games and their approach to creating them are never the same, anyway. We enjoy seeing the differences. We're totally fine with seeing more games come out that borrow aspects. Our main focus is keeping game creation fresh for ourselves."

"Demon’s Souls wasn’t doing well,” he says. “The project had problems and the team had been unable to create a compelling prototype. But when I heard it was a fantasy-action role-playing game, I was excited. I figured if I could find a way to take control of the game, I could turn it into anything I wanted. Best of all, if my ideas failed, nobody would care – it was already a failure."

"“Personally, a world that is happy and bright is something that just doesn’t feel realistic to me. It may sound like I have a trauma or something,” he said with a laugh, “but I believe that the world is generally a wasteland that is not kind to us. That’s just the way I see it.”"

"While making this game I rediscovered my love for making poison swamps. I know how people feel about them but I suddenly realize I'm in the middle of making one and I can't help myself. It just happens."

"Often people, especially computer engineers, focus on the machines. They think, "By doing this, the machine will run faster. By doing this, the machine will run more effectively. By doing this, the machine will something something something." They are focusing on machines. But in fact we need to focus on humans, on how humans care about doing programming or operating the application of the machines. We are the masters. They are the slaves."

"Computers are not very smart. They don't understand human language, so we have to tell them what to do in a language that both humans and computers can understand."

"Everyone has an individual background. Someone may come from Python, someone else may come from Perl, and they may be surprised by different aspects of the language. Then they come up to me and say, 'I was surprised by this feature of the language, so Ruby violates the principle of least surprise.' Wait. Wait. The principle of least surprise is not for you only. The principle of least surprise means principle of least my surprise. And it means the principle of least surprise after you learn Ruby very well. For example, I was a C++ programmer before I started designing Ruby. I programmed in C++ exclusively for two or three years. And after two years of C++ programming, it still surprises me."

"I no longer can figure out what the hell they're trying to do with the numbering, and I don't know which one is which. I don't know what they're trying to do with all of these spin-offs, so this includes Nina: Death by Degrees as well. I don't think it even needs saying, but people should stay away from Tekken. Nothing left to say. I just don't want them to disappoint me any more. It's so annoying. Please don't annoy me any more."

"The testers who tested this game went nuts. At first it was easier, but when the testers said "this is too difficult", I made it even more difficult."

"I only included things that everybody likes, like violence, flowers, children, women, friendship and death."

"Covered in hair, is she? I dunno, Mr. Kamiya must have a lot going through his head. Well, in any case, I would first recommend laser eye surgery. I'm sure he's not that strapped for cash, right?"

"If I made a similar game as a game I made in the company I quit, people would say, "What an idiot, can't he make anything else?" Well, that is more or less the opinion I have for, uh, that Bayo-something game."

"So you know cats are interesting. They are kind of like girls. If they come and talk to you it's great. But if you try to talk to them it doesn't always go so well."

"Necessity is the mother of invention. I love solving things like that. Because there wasn't enough memory, thinking of an economical way to make the movements look right was like solving a puzzle, and I had a lot of fun."

"What if everything that you see, is more than what you see? The person next to you is a warrior and the space that appears empty is a door to another world? What if something appears that shouldn't? You either dismiss it or accept that there is more to the world than you think. Perhaps it is really a doorway, and if you choose to go inside, you'll find many unexpected things."

"The PSP will not be able to display anything that you cannot do on a current system."

"I don't like all the attention. I think it's better to let my work do the talking."

"I don't know what Mario will look like next; maybe he will wear metallic clothing with a red hat."

"Games are a trigger for adults to again become primitive, primal, as a way of thinking and remembering. An adult is a child who has more ethics and morals, that's all. When I am a child, creating, I am not creating a game. I am in the game. The game is not for children, it is for me. It is for an adult who still has a character of a child."

"Any new media or industry that grows rapidly is going to be criticized. That's just because the older, more established media have been around, and a lot of adults can be very conservative. They may not have an open mind to new things that weren't around when they were growing up, and are replacing the things they grew up with... over the years I've seen this standard image of a child playing a video game in which the child is alone in a darkened room, with his face very close to the TV, with the light of the TV reflecting off his face, holding the controller and just staring at the TV. I'd really like to be able to change that image of video games into something that's a little more positive."

"A game that keeps a smile on the player's face is a wonderful thing. Nintendo's theme for 2006 will be "Create new fun". Spread the fun of games to everyone. To do this, we must return to the beginning, to recapture the essence that made people who enjoy games even now enjoy them in the first place."

"Challenge for the player is the most important thing. In the Mario games for example, the player can go back and try to finish the game without collecting a single coin. I think great video games are like favorite playgrounds, places you become attached to and go back to again and again. Wouldn't it be great to have a whole drawer full of "playgrounds" right at your fingertips?"

"A good idea is something that does not solve just one single problem, but rather can solve multiple problems at once."

"I could make Halo. It's not that I couldn't design that game. It's just that I choose not to. One thing about my game design is that I never try to look for what people want and then try to make that game design. I always try to create new experiences that are fun to play."