Nintendo's Miyamoto on Wii Music

by GamePro Germany staff

November 4, 2008 —

The latest fun-for-all game from Nintendo that makes use of the Wii's motion-sensing controllers, Wii Music, hit U.S. store shelves on Oct. 20 and will launch in Europe on Nov. 14. The game promises to make everyone a band member, no matter what your musical or gaming experience, or if you prefer, the conductor.

It packs over 60 instruments and comes with 50 tracks including Nintendo's classic Super Mario Bros theme tune. With the success of music games on rival consoles what does it do differently? GamePro Germany sat down with Shigeru Miyamoto, senior general manager at Nintendo and the brains behind Wii Music and many of the company's biggest and most successful games to find out more.

GamePro Germany: How important is music in your life, does it play an important role for you?
Shigeru Miyamoto: It's been more than 30 years since I began playing musical instruments. Since then I've played in several bands and the people from the bands are still very close friends. In my office and in our living room there are various guitars. Whenever I have time I want to touch and play the guitar and doing so gives me a warm feeling. It's also important for communicating with my children. I've been encouraging them to play musical instruments for some time. My son has been playing the guitar and recently is playing the drums and my daughter has been playing the trumpet and quite recently started playing the electric guitar and joined a band. Between us music is an important topic.

GP: What kind of music do you like to listen to and do you have any favorite bands?
SM: It's really my personal hobby but I like American blue grass. I love this type of music and listen to it a lot. I've found some band members and each year we attend a jamboree where several hundred people camp out for a few days and we have a large jam-session.

GP: There are already many music video games so what makes Wii Music different?
SM: They have the same musical theme but the game itself is completely different. For someone that don't know much about them they probably think its just another music game but that's not the case. In most of the other music games the primary purpose is to follow the set musical scores as precisely as possible and you'll get scored on that so you try to be more and more accurate on keeping the rhythm. Wii Music is different in that we have some music but the players are supposed to generate the sound at will and express themselves through the music they make. As a result we don't have scores because there is no way to get scored on your expression. For example, at a jam-session the music to be played is already decided but the way it's played is up to the musicians. So in Wii Music you decide which sounds should be featured, which should be kept in and at what strength instruments are played. You play the role of the musical director and can end up with an infinite amount of music.

GP: What is the audience? Is it for musicians or people who have never played a musical instrument before.
SM: It's for anyone, even people who don't play video games. It doesn't matter if you play instruments or not. Usually to play an instrument you are supposed to learn how to play it, about basic musical theory and how to read music. These are hurdles for ordinary people to start playing music or start understanding the joy of musical performance. Wii Music has gotten rid of these hurdles so regardless of whether you have had any prior musical experience you can play with Wii Music. I'm currently playing Wii Music with several people including some professional musicians. To them it's sometimes stressful because sometimes they cannot express everything with a Wii Remote that they could express with a musical instrument but what is interesting with their approach to Wii Music is that they see it as another instrument and try to take advantage of it to express themselves in a different way. We also have amateurs and people who don't play instruments. When they got together the amateurs particularly are very happy that they can join and play with professionals. That kind of interesting

GP: You said Wii Music is for everyone so it's a casual game. What about the gamers looking for the next core game from Nintendo like Twilight Princess or Super Mario Bros? Will they soon be satisfied?

GamePro