Page 1 — The First Foreign Employee of Nintendo
Page 2 — Working on the N64
Page 3 — Snowboarding in 64 Bits
Page 4 — N64DD, Doshin and Prototypes
Page 5 — Rock n’ Roll Wii and VR
Page 6 — Undersea Adventures on the 3DS and Smash
Page 7 — Bringing Tanks Online and Missed Opportunities
Page 8 — The Future of Vitei
Page 9 — Giles, The Enabler
Page 10 — The Future of Vitei and VR
Page 4 — N64DD, Doshin and Prototypes
You’ve worked on some very odd games in your time, like porting Doshin the Giant to the GameCube and Theta. How did you get involved with the Doshin the Giant port?
I left Nintendo, and then I did some freelancing. So that was just one of the jobs I did. It wasn’t really a port though, it was a complete rewrite.
Since the N64DD hardware was so different? Was it a challenge?
Not really, as I just did it from scratch. I don’t think I reused any of the old assets or code or anything.
Was there any plans to port the second Doshin?
I don’t think so. I don’t think it was that popular.
Did you work on any N64DD games?
No actually. That was so short lived, that I didn’t have the chance to do anything really.
I’m not sure if you can comment on this, but there was a patent for the N64 that would’ve added online functionality and picture in picture…
Picture and picture for the N64? So you could watch TV while playing games?
Yeah, and you could also [theoretically] connect to the Internet and download titles and play online.
I don’t really know anything about that. Picture in picture…didn’t all TVs have that?
On the next page we discuss Vitei’s Wii game, and the start of VR.
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- Sakurai Discusses Isabelle, Echoes, and Newcomers - September 26, 2018
I fear a fully technologically integrated society. Maybe I just really hate The Matrix films, but the idea of everything running through one device just feels monopolistic and like we’d just be waiting for the end of the world at some point. I’d probably be able to word this better if it wasn’t so late.
What I do know is what the other second-parties have to say. HAL and GameFreak have been trying to step out of the shadow of Nintendo recently (though the burnt out GameFreak more so). Retro has said… things about working under Tanabe, but Next Level seems to think differently. And then there’s Monster. MonolithSoft seems to be in a good place, and Intelligent Systems can do whatever they want, it seems. I wonder what Treasure’s been up to? I think they were working on something for Capcom last I checked…
Great interview, PushDustIn! Question: Does the word “vitei” mean anything in Japanese, or sound like a Japanese term?
it is a great interview, hope you can interview more ex nintendo staff soon !