iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Bryce Guyle @bguyle.itch.io · 16/07/2026

The price conversation and what your customer base perceives the value they're getting feels like such a relevant conversation nowadays. Also his talk about wanting to surprise or present a massively polished piece feels very thoughtful.

Snippet from Miyamoto and Eno interview:

"Miyamoto: In reality, instead of having six or seven stars per stage, I only wanted half that number. But like I said before, the foundation is set now, so we perhaps can start doing stuff like that from here on out. Do vou remember that old Mac game where you'd shoot cannons at each other in a windy area? You'd adjust nothing but the launch angle and power to hit the enemy artillery hiding behind rocks. The other side would shoot back at you using the wind too. I think that kind of thing is far more interesting than the RPGs we see today
But you just can't make a game like that when you have to worry about justifying a 9,800 yen price tag. People look at a casual game like that and assume it can be made on a low budget, or that a rookie can handle it, or that if it's that simple, it could ust be distributed via the Satellaview. Everything gets manufactured based entirely on price Instead of opening up a playground for people to try out new ideas, everything nas just become a conversation about cost. I find that a bit frustrating. If only we had properly sold the Famicom Disk System back then, it really would have expanded things and allowed for all kinds of experimental challenges. The
CD-ROM has shown some of that..."

shmuplations.com@shmuplations.bsky.social

Today we have something special: a newly translated interview from July 1996 between Shigeru Miyamoto and Kenji Eno! Conducted just weeks after the launch of Mario 64, Eno takes Miyamoto to task (in a friendly way) with several fascinating critiques of its design. shmuplations.com/miyamotoxeno/

shmuplations.com

Shigeru Miyamoto x Kenji Eno (1996) - shmuplations.com

In July 1996, Kenji Eno visited Nintendo HQ to speak with Shigeru Miyamoto as the first of his "cross-talk" series.

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Bryce Guyle @bguyle.itch.io · 16/07/2026

Interesting point about video game development in comparision to other arts where the art came before the industry. By this point auteur creators were becoming more prominent in the electronic games space.

More from the same interview between Eno and Miyamoto:

"Eno: The reason I find qames sc fascinating is that other mediums usually start out artistic, then business pleeds into them until the art turns into a mere product. Industrial manufacturing takes over, marketing becomes the priority, and the medium declines. With games, people have only recently started talking about authorship and individual creative voice. It feels completely reversed. And it's not just me: you have folks like Yoot Saito, Kazutoshi lida, and Yuji Naka from Nights into Dreams coming up. l'm incredibly happy about that shift
Miyamoto: You think about this stuff a lot. I'm impressed.
Eno: We're the younger generation, so we have to work hard. (laughs) The sheer level of intensity required to make games is insane. It makes you wonder if we really need to push ourselves this far,
Miyamoto: Yeah. What's the point if you end up abandoning your family? I truly feel that way. My family always tells me that in twenty years, I'll finally realize what was actually important to me. (laughs)"

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