With Nintendo’s next mobile venture, Super Mario Run, slated to release next week for iOS devices, Shigeru Miyamoto recently spoke to the Wall Street Journal about this latest endeavor.
In regards to the creation of Super Mario Run, Miyamoto explained that development took approximately a year, and that the game was designed the way it was with how people hold their phones in mind. Since the majority of people hold their phone in one hand, this meant that the width of the screen would be narrow. This forced the team to design gameplay around the size of the screen, focusing on making Mario climb and drop through stages to progress and collect items.
When questioned why Nintendo had waited until this year to produce a game for mobile devices, Miyamoto replied by saying that smartphones simply weren’t powerful enough, even though he added that now there are “more opportunities for consumers to come into contact with a mobile phone than our own gaming devices.”
Super Mario Run will release for iOS devices on December 15th. It is scheduled to release for Android sometime next year.
