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Where Do Iwata Asks Topics Come From?

By Ishaan . November 23, 2011 . 11:30am

Where Do Iwata Asks Topics Come From?

Nintendo president, Satoru Iwata, often likes to conduct interviews with various Nintendo developers, as well as third-party developers, regarding the development process of the games they’re working on. These interviews, titled “Iwata Asks,” can often be very enlightening and give a fair bit of insight into the development of various games.

 

So, just how does Iwata come up with topics to discuss at each interview? The answer is “Monday lunches”. About once a week — usually on Mondays — Iwata joins Nintendo’s other upper management staff, including Mario veterans Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka, to listen in on their lunchtime conversations.

 

The reason he specifically chooses Mondays to carry out this practise is because he finds that the staff spend weekends mulling various ideas over in their heads, and then bring them up on Mondays, which makes the Monday conversations the most interesting to listen to.

 

Sometimes, Iwata chooses to attend lunches on Tuesdays and Wednesdays as well. Those are the days where the conversation typically steers toward problems surfacing during the development of various games. On Tuesdays and Wednesdays, he gets to hear the latest on games that aren’t progressing well.

 

This information comes via a rather long three-way discussion between Iwata, Miyamoto, and the Hobo Nikkan Itoi Shimbun website’s owner, Shigesato Itoi. Our readers probably know him better as the creator of the Earthbound series.


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  • aoihana

    I love the Iwata Asks segments, they really are very insightful. It’s great to read that Iwata doesn’t just get his people to do the dirty work. When he’s doing the interviews, he seems genuinely interested, which is great and makes the interviews that much more enjoyable. (^o^)

  • Solomon_Kano

    Huh. I just assumed he pulled em out of his head.

  • http://tristsantithesis.tumblr.com/ Tsunayoshi Sawada

    Who is Tezukar? I always thought these Iwatar asks were the most interesting things to Iwatar and to Ninty. Although they dont maintain other interesting outlets such as consistently updated blogs, Iwatar’s columns, when they are games that are interesting, are often compelling. I hope he continues these in the future and suggests that his successor does the same. 

  • RablaAndrews

    “Iwata Asks: Iwata Asks”

    • http://twitter.com/keithmaxx keithmaxx

      Recursion. You wouldn’t go anywhere if no one answers.

  • badmoogle

    I wish Sony also did some kind of similar interviews…One of the things that i like about the Iwata asks interviews is that they never feel as blant PR promotion.I really appreciate that.

  • Joanna

    That sort of makes sense as Iwata seems to know about problems when asking about things in his interviews. I usually hate reading super long interviews, but Iwata Asks are always so interesting. :3

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