Miyamoto thought it would be fun to raise a pet on the television.
The latest Iwata Asks is all about Nintendogs + Cats and interviews Shigeru Miyamoto and Hideki Konno about the title.
The trio explained why cats are secondary to dogs in the title, yet doubled the amount of work.
Nintendogs was intended for GameCube and Miyamoto said that he thought it would be fun to raise a pet on the television, but ultimately the Nintendo DS was found more suitable for this kind of game. The second Nintendogs game was also considered for a Wii release, but the lack of microphone meant that it was not possible. Still, the Nintendo 3DS provided the processing power for the fluffy fur textures that had to be excluded from the first release.
Lots of detail is included about the 3DS version of the game including AR card and Activity Log compatibility. Miyamoto also remembered that, initially, the idea was to have 16 versions of the game arranged in a 4x4 grid, so that when you walked into a store, you could choose the breed of dog you wanted. The sales department refused this setup, but allowed three versions, despite preferring to promote one single edition.
Choice Iwata quotes from the interview include:
Iwata: It had to be "+ cats"—like they come second.
You can brag about your pet. (laughs)
Iwata: Whoa! You can brag about your pet on a worldwide scale!
Konno: And then we photographed real puppies for the packages…they are really cute.
Iwata: (looking at a photo of a toy poodle) Yeah, this is breaking the rules! (laughs)
Konno: Yeah. (laughs) It wasn't easy finding this toy poodle!