Nintendo believes in player communication via design

Former Nintendo employees have recently spoken about the company’s design ethos, which prioritizes player discovery on their own terms above over-tutorializing.

In an interview with Bloomberg published last week, former Nintendo software developer Ken Watanabe shared insights into the creation of new games and even new franchises. According to him, when new gameplay mechanics come to mind, those are nailed down first, and the rest gets built around that foundation.

The tendency away from overt tutorialization is in line with this.

“Nintendo strongly believes communication with players should happen only through the product itself,” Shinichiro Tamaki, a former Nintendo hardware planner who helped in the creation of the Wii, told Bloomberg. “Imagine playing Mario and someone next to you says, ‘Hey, it’s fun if you stomp on this Goomba’—it would totally ruin the experience, right? Nintendo wants players to discover things on their own and enjoy that process.”

Subtle mechanical nuances are discoveries that Nintendo wants the player to find out organically.

“Like, when you push the stick to move a character, they gradually pick up speed, or when you jump, the height changes depending on how hard you press the button,” Takaya Imamura, who worked on franchises like Zelda and Star Fox over a 30-year tenure at the company, told Bloomberg. “It’s that kind of thing that just never gets old—it just feels good to play. It’s all about that direct connection between you and the game, that sense that you’re completely in control.”

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“A sense of novelty” is key

The interviews come weeks after Nintendo spoke about the value of entertainment and uniqueness in front of investors. During a shareholder Q&A, Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa said the company is exploring how to condense production cycles while still creating games that offer a “sense of novelty” to players.

“I am concerned that the improved performance of Nintendo Switch 2 will lead to higher game development costs, which in turn could result in higher software prices and ultimately a decrease in the gaming population,” said one shareholder on the call. “What measures are you considering to address this?”

Addressing the question, Furukawa explained Nintendo is “devising various ways to maintain our traditional approach to creating games amidst the increasing scale and lengthy of development.”

“We believe it is important to make the necessary investments for more efficient development. We also believe it is possible to develop game software with shorter development periods that still offer consumers a sense of novelty,” he continued. “We see this as one potential solution to the concern about rising development costs and software prices, and we will explore it from various angles within the company.”

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