Profile: Nintendo EAD
Pioneers of the Renaissance
Page 3 of 3
Zelda and Pokemon
By mid 1998, Nintendo began to hype its two biggest development projects for the Nintendo 64. Pokemon Stadium and The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time were wrapping up production. The two titles specifically were Nintendo's main weapon against Sony in Japan. One title based on one of Nintendo's oldest and most famous franchises, the other based on a phenomenon that was hypnotizing children all over Japan, and soon all over the world. The Legend of Zelda was an action-adventure RPG, and Pokemon Stadium was a simulation combat game. Nintendo's hope of increasing its user base in Japan was relying heavily on the success of Pokemon Stadium and The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time.
Pokemon Stadium's development team was quite large, and not far off in size from the Zelda 64 team which was working alongside them. Pokemon Stadium was actually using the most R&D Nintendo has ever dispensed on a project. EAD handled the core programming and game development, but modeling 150 Pokemons proved to be an arduous task for anyone to attempt. Members from Nintendo EAD, Nintendo R&D3, and Creatures were called upon to assist in the 3D modeling. EAD then shared the models with sister-developer HAL Labs, who used it on Pokemon Snap.
Takao Shimizu, director of Star Fox 64, was called on as director for Pokemon Stadium. Yasunari Nishida, who was the lead programmer of Super Mario 64, was now handling lead programming duties on Pokemon Stadium for Nintendo EAD.
Kenji Yamamoto, programmer on Super Mario Kart and Mario Kart 64 and a long time sound composer, was the other main programmer, handling the 3D combat system. Shigeru Miyamoto, Kenji Miki, and Satoru Iwata jointly produced the title for NCL. Hajime Wakai, sound composer of F-Zero X, and Kento Nagata, sound composer of Mario Kart 64, jointly composed the soundtrack and sampled the sound effects. Nintendo's initial plan was to have Zelda attract all the older Nintendo fans, and RPG gamers, while Pokemon Stadium would lure the younger children.
Released in late August in Japan, streets were filled with children lining up to buy Pokemon Stadium. In many cases children were getting both an N64 system along with Pokemon Stadium. Selling 1.3 million copies in a year flat, Nintendo wasted no time in gearing up for a sequel. Nintendo was preparing to market the Pokemon cartoon and Game Boy titles in North America and Europe, so NCL and EAD decided against releasing the first Pokemon Stadium worldwide, instead, focusing on a sequel for the Japanese market, which would be the first Pokemon Stadium released internationally.
The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time was another huge production at Nintendo EAD. Using most of the Super Mario 64 team, minus a few staff members who were assigned to other projects. Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka once again teamed up for this epic 3D installment to the Zelda franchise. Lead programmer, Kenzo Hayakawa, and his team took the acclaimed 3D Super Mario 64 engine, and basically changed and tweaked every core of it.
Koji Kondo, legendary Nintendo composer, returned with a plethora of orchestrated MIDI scores for the game's soundtrack. Zelda was reportedly in primary development for two years, constantly in disarray because of platform changes between disk media and ROM cartridge, as well as facing the difficulty of translating a 2D franchise into the 3D. Besides the obvious 3D implementation to the series, things like motion capturing, real-time cinemas, voice acting (mostly for grunts and yells), and a dynamic MIDI score were introduced for the first time. Facing the pressure of a huge amount of media hype, and tons of stockholders counting on the title's success, Nintendo EAD took its time in ensuring the title's success.
Released worldwide, on November 24th (21st in Japan), millions of anxious Zelda fans made The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time a hard game to get a hold of. No gamer was guaranteed a copy on the day of release unless it was pre-ordered. Those who didn't pre-order found themselves in the middle of a retail frenzy for the hot game. Nintendo EAD's efforts did not go unnoticed by consumers or gaming journalists. The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time received perfect tens from well-known journal publications like Famitsu, EGM, and IGN.
Many did not hesitate to call it game of the year, going as far as labeling this rendition of Zelda, the greatest game ever. Personal opinion aside, the game's popularity could not be contested. The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time sold 7 million copies in a year's time. As good as Zelda's sales were worldwide, the game sold around 1.3 million copies in Japan, falling beyond Nintendo's expectation of the game selling near a 2:1 ratio; meaning Nintendo planned to nearly double its Nintendo 64 user base on the game's release alone. Zelda's worldwide popularity, however, sent Nintendo into researching a 64DD sequel.
NCL on DMG Color
Nintendo's R&D1 division, supported Nintendo's Game Boy Color half-heartedly. Producing deluxe edition ports of past GB games like Wario Land 2 DX and Balloon Fight GB. Nintendo's hand held teams did manage to develop a few original games for the Game Boy Color. R&D1 produced Wario Land 3 in 2000 and Miyamoto's EAD team co-developed with Capcom the 2-part Zelda series; The Legend of Zelda: Mysterious Seed of Power Chapter of the Earth, and The Legend of Zelda: Mysterious Seed of Power Chapter of Time and Space in the first quarter of 2001. The development team did have other original projects, but they were all shifted to Nintendo's next Game Boy hardware, the Game Boy Advance.
In Winter 1998, Nintendo's R&D2 team was beefing up in staff. Masayuki Kamimura's R&D2 team experimented briefly with a Super Famicom title by the name of Marvelous in 1996. The title was directed by then straight out of college Eiji Aonuma. The game took a lot of people by surprise. While Aonuma moved to Miyamoto's EAD department to work on 3D The Legend of Zelda titles, Kamimura was allowed to have a dedicated game development staff and for the first time independently develop software projects. Borrowing a few programmers from the EAD-SNES teams and a new set of younger programmers, the group began by developing enhanced ports of Super Mario Bros Deluxe and The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX for the Game Boy Color. The group's first accolade was coming up with a new tilt technology. The technology was a sensory motor placed inside Game Boy Color cartridges, which allowed the player to control the action on screen by simply tilting the Game Boy Color around. The R&D2 staff chose to use Nintendo/HAL's mascot Kirby in their first tilt cartridge software. Toshiaki Suzuki and team wrapped up development and released Koro Koro Kirby (Kirby's Tilt N' Tumble) world wide by Fall 2000. .
Trials of Productions
After The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was completed, NCL began a period of heavy R&D experimentation. Shigeru Miyamoto and NCL's board of directors were concentrating on steering Nintendo into making some very unconventional games that could provide new experiences to the gaming community, and appeal to gamers who were tired of seeing yearly sequels and shameless imitations. Nintendo was losing heavy ground in Japan, and its biggest properties could only take them so far. Nintendo took some different approaches by collaborating staff with Treasure on Sin and Punishment, Makoto Tezuka (director) on Emperor of the Jungle, and Hudson Software on Mario Party
Nintendo also continued experimenting with its own game titles with The Legend of Zelda 64DD, Mario 64 II, 1080 Snowboarding II, a series of editing game software titled Mario Artist, new communication games, co-development on Earthbound 64, and Cabbage, a monster breeding game in development for Nintendo's 64DD.
Suddenly, all was quiet in the land of Nintendo. The Nintendo 64DD suffered constant delays and its games accompanied it. Nintendo slowly began to cancel and redirect all its projects. Pilotwings 64 II, 1080 Snowboarding II, Mario 64 II, Cabbage, and Emperor of the Jungle were all terminated. Miyamoto and NCL, who were producing the Paradigm programmed Pilotwings sequel had neither the time nor the desire to complete the project. The other titles were all cancelled due to Nintendo, perhaps, wanting to use the R&D for other reasons. No matter the intent, it was clear Nintendo fans were definitely going to miss a plethora of once hopeful Nintendo in-house titles.
In the Summer of 1999, Nintendo announced it split the Zelda 64 team into two. Each of those two teams was developing a separate Zelda title for the Nintendo 64. One was going to be released on standard ROM cart, and the other was going to be released as a 64DD expansion set. The cartridge Zelda, titled Zelda: Gaiden (later renamed to Zelda: Majora's Mask), was going to be an original side quest directed by aspiring Nintendo EAD director Eiji Aonuma. The 64DD Zelda, titled Ura-Zelda, was going to be handled by another new EAD director as well. Shigeru Miyamoto and NCL were in the process of appointing newly trained Nintendo EAD directors to expand Nintendo's R&D and to add fresh talent.
Nintendo EAD finished 1999 with the sole release of Pokemon Stadium 2. The new Pokemon Stadium title introduced four-player mini games, and an improved one-player mode. It also interacted with the Game Boy Color NCL (Gamefreak) developed Pokemon Gold and Pokemon Silver. This was the first Pokemon Stadium released internationally. Pokemon fever was running rampant in North America and Europe. Nintendo's brilliant marketing and Pokemon's appeal to children worked as well internationally as it did in Japan. Nintendo of America released Pokemon Stadium (Pokemon Stadium 2) in North America in March 2000, and the game has since sold 1.8 million copies in North America.
Nintendo EAD's next software release came in the spring of 2000 when The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask was completed. This new game used the The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time engine but added completely different objectives as well as incorporating an innovative 3-day quest system. New Nintendo EAD director, and protege under Shigeru Miyamoto, Eiji Aonuma teamed up with Yoshiaki Koizumi, and developed a game that did the impossible. In the eyes of many, Zelda: Majora's Mask was slightly better than Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka's masterpiece The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time.
The End of an Era
Nintendo shortly after announced the second 'semi-sequel' Zelda game for the 64DD was completed; however due to the Nintendo 64DD's low user base, Nintendo was withholding the title's release and would likely never release it. Nintendo still released Mario Artist: Talent Studio and F-Zero X Expansion Kit for the Nintendo 64DD in Japan to finish up its release schedule for the year 2000. Miyamoto also worked with UK developer Software Creations, a development house which Nintendo had worked closely with in the past, on Mario Artist: Paint Studio, which connected to the Nintendo Co., programmed Mario Artist: Talent Studios.
Nintendo announced right before its annual Japanese game summit show, SpaceWorld 2000, its last internal titles for the Nintendo 64, Pokemon Stadium Crystal (Pokemon Stadium GS outside of Japan) and Animal Forest. Pokemon Stadium Crystal, was the third and final chapter of the Nintendo 64 simulation combat fighter. Released during Christmas 2000 in Japan, the game interacts with Pokemon Crystal for Game Boy Color. Animal Forest was a simulation game with communication features directed by Katsuya Eguchi and produced by Takashi Tezuka. Animal Forest was released on April in Japan, it's praise and warm reception encouraged Nintendo to pursue a franchise and release it on internationally on future platforms.
One of the more frustrating things within NCL during the N64 days was the fact that development production was actually decreasing as time went on. While in its first year of development, Nintendo released five in-house Nintendo 64 titles; Nintendo's main N64 developer, the EAD team; never released more than four titles a year on the Nintendo 64 after that. Even with N64 development becoming easier and the staff required for each project decreased, almost every Nintendo N64 title fell behind schedule.
The Future of Nintendo
Preparing for GameCube and Game Boy Advance development, Nintendo meticulously changed its infrastructure to better suit its internal R&D teams. In June of 2000, Nintendo announced it was making room on its Board of Directors to add EAD producers Genyo Takeda and Shigeru Miyamoto, along with former Hal Labs head Satoru Iwata. Nintendo felt alongside businessmen, the board needed some software and hardware experts guiding Nintendo's direction. Nintendo has also had internal expansion of its R&D teams in mind. On November 24th of 2000, Nintendo moved its Japanese headquarters, along with its internal teams, into a newly built facility a block over. The new building was primarily built to provide a more expansive workplace for Nintendo's growing development teams.
Existing development staffs also underwent some changes internally. With Shigeru Miyamoto, and Genyo Takeda, both being promoted into NCL's Board of Directors, they were now in charge of overseeing software development on all Nintendo development teams, rather than just IRD and EAD. Though Miyamoto and Takeda, still produce and design certain games, they can no longer work with the other development teams as often. Nintendo decided to promote Takashi Tezuka to Section Chief of EAD, heading up Miyamoto's software development, with the help of senior directors like Eiji Aonuma, Hideki Konno, Takao Shimizu, Tadashi Sugiyama, Katsuya Eguchi, Shigefumi Hino and others.
Gaming Advanced
Nintendo's Research & Engineering's Satoru Okada (division spawned out of the R&D1 engineering group) newest creation, the Game Boy Advance was released to the public in the Summer of 2001. The R&D1 team's first big original game was Wario Land 4. Hirofumi Matsuoka handled the role of director, and developed what is considered by many the pinnacle of the series. Wario Land 4 featured beautiful graphics, an amazing soundtrack by Ryoji Yoshitomi, and the most clever and well designed puzzles and area maps yet. While Matsuoka handled lead design on Wario Land 4, former lead designer Takehiko Hosokawa concentrated on R&D1's newest mascot platformer, Legendary Starfi, a new series starring a cute and lovable starfish.
The R&D2 team responsible for the Game Boy Color Super Mario Bros. Deluxe remake, was assigned to port Super Mario Advance (Super Mario Bros. 2), Super Mario Advance 2 (Super Mario World), Super Mario Advance 3 (Super Mario Bros. 3), Yoshi's Island and Yoshi's Story tto the Game Boy Advance. The titles would all be perfectly ported, and enhanced to a certain extent (new features, slightly updated graphics), and were forecasted to be released throughout 2001 and 20002. Super Mario Advance released in June, and Super Mario Advance 2 released in December (Japan), were the first two titles completed.
The Nintendo Difference
Nintendo's second-generation 3D console; the Nintendo GameCube, was released in Japan on September 18th, 2001. It's initial launch and post-launch (Fall 2001) titles were composed of smaller resource titles. Takashi Tezuka and Shigeru Miyamoto produced Hideki Konno's Luigi's Mansion, a very bold move to replace the usual blockbuster Mario platformer with an innovative but less groundbreaking puzzle-adventure title starring his side-kick brother Luigi. Lead programmer Hiroki Sotoike and team produced an amusing adventure title, but the game's more gimmick based engine and lack of difficulty proved to be more a filler than a system seller.
Nintendo's R&D4 team did manage to create an original and successful new franchise to accompany Luigi. Directors Shigefumi Hino (Yoshi series) and Masamichi Abe (1080 Snowboarding) came up with a unique AI driven real-time strategy title that exposed the wild life in a foreign planet's ecosystem. Colin Reed who was a programmer with director Masamichi Abe on 1080 Snowboarding, handled the main programming on the title. The game's undisputable charm, and innovative gameplay became a successful entry for Nintendo, one the company is hoping to turn into a franchise.
Nintendo's EAD and R&D2 teams followed up it's two original titles by announcing numerous all-star sequels ranging from Mario Sunshine, Pokemon, The Legend of Zelda, Koro Koro Kirby 2, and a new GameCube edition of Mario Kart. The company is also underway with a GameCube upgrade Animal Forest +.
Gaming 24:7
Nintendo's Kyoto group continues to be the heart of Nintendo. It is the reason Nintendo is where it is today, and the reason Nintendo will continue to be successful in the future. The design house is completely versatile, but it's most importantly known for its remarkable ability to constantly add innovative features to its games while staying focused on game control and gameplay. Nintendo's philosophy is admirable, its efforts is inspiring, and the imagination behind Nintendo games is nothing short of majestic.
(Last Screenshot courtesy of NintendoWeb)
(Original artwork courtesy of Chad Hamlet)