5. The Reason the Developers Think it Caught On

Iwata - Itou-san from Sound - at one point did it click for you what this software was supposed to be, and get that drive to finish?

Itou - Obviously at first I was feeling around in the dark. For instance, when you want to make sad music, or something for when you’re feeling down, you can watch a movie or tv or something and get a hint for what to do, but for “Tomodachi Collection” it was songs for compatibility tests and job placement - the kind of stuff that just really doesn’t exist much out of this context. To an extent you have blood tests and those kinds of things on variety shows, but they just didn’t really gel with “Tomodachi Collection”, so I really was feeling around in the dark. For the compatibility test I was envisioning something showy like you’d hear on a night show, but then I was told, “don’t you think a piano song would be good?”

Iwata - Who said that?

Itou - Sakamoto-san. I was a bit shocked- “What? Piano!?”

Iwata - Takahashi-san, were you aware of how that went down?

Takahashi - That was decided after consulting with Sakamoto-san, and the main thing was that I felt strongly that it shouldn’t just be some run of the mill thing. So we decided to drive it in a completely serious direction, that song that plays while you’re waiting at a wedding…

Iwata - “Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben”.

Takahashi - Right, Ito-san proposed doing something like that.

Itou - I figured I was being messed with, but made the compatibility test song like that. And then it was approved, and I knew “this is the kind of game it’s going to be”, and I first realized that I couldn’t depend on already existing things like these variety shows.

Iwata - Having gotten used to that quirky freedom and gotten approval on your song, you must have started to perk up.

Itou - Yes, I started getting into it. At around that time I proposed how I felt the broken heart song could go.

Iwata - By then you had figured out that what we were looking for wasn’t the conventional.

Itou - Right.

Iwata - Well then, having withered, collected lots of different programming tasks, gotten mails about “not taking pants off”, and finally made it to completion - now that your work on “Tomodachi Collection” is done, looking back, why do you think it hit with so many people? I’d like to ask Miyamoto-san, in addition to all of the team members. Let’s start with Unno-san.

Unno - Most games feature fictional characters, but “Tomodachi Collection” is a game where people who you know and are close to you like your friends appear. If you had friends who were in a play or playing a concert, even if you didn’t particularly have interest in theater or music you would probably go, right? That’s because it would be really easy to talk about amongst your friends or acquaintances. I think maybe that has something to do with the why.

Iwata - That’s exactly why Miyamoto-san had interest in the portraits in the first place. If people close to you like your friends are in it, there’s less distance between you and the content of the software. Itou-san, what do you think?

Itou - I think that it’s fun because we paid attention to a lot of the small details and there’s a lot that’s unexpected.

Iwata - Can you give any examples?

Itou - For instance the heart break scene - the Mii asks you, “I’ve fallen in love with such-and-such. Is it OK to confess to them?” You then select either, “Go ahead” or “That’s not a good idea”. After that there’s all these different ways it could play out - the Mii could be turned down, a couple could break up, they could get married, and then get divorced after that, so it’s clearly been made down to the finest detail.

Iwata - At first glance, even if they experience the same shock from breaking up, all of these outcomes are different.

Itou - Right. Everyone has something different that they’re attached to, and I think that’s specifically how it gets to feeling like reality.

Iwata - Was that something Takahashi-san’s request?

Takahashi - Yes. Also because Sakamoto-san and one female staff member of the Planning Division really liked the confession and love related systems. The Planning Division lady in particular had lots of requests, “Do more of this, and some of this…”

Iwata - The “female staff member” being the lady in the Planning Division who watched over this product.

Takahashi - Yes.

Iwata - She definitely had a passion for “Tomodachi Collection”. She had lots of Miis living in her condo, and each one had something that they really liked and made them excited, which aren’t exactly easy to figure out - but she managed to figure it out for all of them, and every day she would give whatever it was to each Mii, putting them in a great mood.

Takahashi - Part of the reason she had so many requests was because she was so passionate about it.

Iwata - And Takahashi-san picked up that attention to detail. In the end, what Itou-san feels made the game such a hit were these things that Takahashi-san felt shouldn’t be made in the normal way.

Itou - Right. Furthermore, the way normal games have these fancy systems that are programmatically controlled is of course a wonderful thing, but “Tomodachi Collection” really feels like it has systems overflowing with a human touch, that feel like they were made by hand, and I think maybe customers can feel that warmth.

Iwata - I see. Okamoto-san, what do you think?

Okamoto - I think the best part is that the Miis are so human-like. At the time that I said to Takahashi-san, “This isn’t fun at all” the Miis were walking around like stilted robots. And then one day I played it and there was this moment where they were moving incredibly human-like. That’s when I started to feel that it was really interesting.

Iwata - Humans are constantly watching other humans every day, so we’re really strict in regards to anything that’s not natural. That’s why I think it would have really provoked a negative reaction if we didn’t do a good job of deforming the designs and creating that world. And I think that maybe when Okamoto-san said, “it’s not interesting”, “Tomodachi Collection” was provoking said negative reactions a lot still, which was really a fly in the ointment. And then it eventually improved more and more, so that one day a certain threshold was crossed, and he was able to feel that it was really interesting.

Okamoto - Exactly. Furthermore, spying on other people and gossiping is fun in and of itself, so I think it’s that fun that comes from human relationships in the game that made it such a hit.

Iwata - Takahashi-san, what do you think?

Takahashi - I feel everything that was already said by everyone else. Customers see people that actually exist through their Miis. As such, I think that it’s on a completely different scale in regards to empathy when compared to other, normal game characters. I think that maybe that’s what hooked customers. And in addition to that, I think the fact that there were so many elements that you want to share with people, show to people, contributed to just how many people accepted the game and played it.